“Lord!” said Boyd.  “If she complains of us to her Commissary husband, there’ll be a new issue not included in his department!”

And it doubled us with laughter to think on’t, so that for lack o’ breath I sat down upon a log to hold my aching sides.

“Now, she’ll be ever on their heels,” muttered Boyd, “hen-like, malevolent, and unaccountable.  No man dare face and flout that lady, whose husband also is utterly subjected.  It was Betty Bleecker who set her on me.  Well, so no more of yonder ladies save in her bristling presence.”

Yet, as it happened, one thing barred Mistress Sabin from a perpetual domination and sleepless supervision of her charges, and that was the trap-door.  Through it she could not force herself, nor could she come around by the guard-door, for the covered way would not admit her ample proportions.  She could but mount her guard at the ladder’s foot.  And there were two exits to that garret room.

That day I would have messed with my own people, Major Parr inviting me, but that our General had all the Otsego officers to dine with him at headquarters, and a huge punch afterward, from which I begged to be excused, as it was best that I look to my Indians when any rum was served in camp.

Boyd came later to the bush-hut, overflushed with punch, saying that he had drawn sixty pair of shoes for his men, to spite old Sabin, and meant to distribute them with music playing; and that afterward I was to join him at the fort as he had orders for himself and for me from the General, and desired to confer with me concerning them.

Later came word from him that he had a headache and would confer with me on the morrow.  Neither did I see Lois again that evening, a gill of rum having been issued to every man, and I sticking close as a wood-tick to my red comrades—­ indeed, I had them out after sunset to watch the cattle-guard, who were in a sorry pickle, sixty head having strayed and two soldiers missing.  And the manoeuvres of that same guard did ever sicken me.

It proved another bloody story, too, for first we found an ox with throat cut; and, it being good meat, we ordered it taken in.  And then, in the bushes ahead, a soldier begins a-bawling that the devil is in his horses, and that they have run back into the woods.

I heard him chasing them, and shouted for him to wait, but the poor fool pays no heed, but runs on after his three horses; and soon he screams out: 

“God a’mighty!” And, “Christ have mercy!”

With that I blow my ranger’s whistle, and my Indians pass me like phantoms in the dusk, and I hot-foot after them; but it was too late to save young Elliott, who lay there dead and already scalped, doubled up in the bed of a little brook, his clenched hand across his eyes and a Seneca knife in his smooth, boyish throat.

Late that night the Sagamore started, chased, and quickly cornered something in a clump of laurel close to the river bank; and my Indians gathered around like fiercely-whining hounds.  It was starlight, but too dark to see, except what was shadowed against the river; so we all lay flat, waiting, listening for whatever it was, deer or bear or man.