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The sortie!" shouted the soldiers, frantic with joy. Murphy and I ran towards them; Elerson yelled: "Be careful! Look at their uniforms! Don't go too close to them!" "They're coming from the north!" bawled Mount. "They're our own people, Dave! Come on!"
Elerson quietly lighted his pipe and aided him, while Murphy shaved off a white square of bark on the maple-tree under the slow-turning body, and I wrote with the juice of an elderberry: "Daniel Redstock, a child murderer, executed by American Riflemen for his crimes, under order of George Ormond, Colonel of Rangers, August 19, 1777. Renegades and Outlaws take warning!"
"If ye see Francy McCraw, jest tell him thar's a rope an' a apple-tree waitin' fur him down to Fundy's Bush!" "Tell Danny Redstock an' Billy Bones that the Stoner boys is smellin' almighty close on their trail!" called out the elder youth. Elerson, in his saddle, gathered the bridles that Mount handed him and rode off into the darkness, leading Mount's horse and Sir George's at a trot.
Boyd's riflemen sat around, cross-legged on the moss, watching the Indians at their labour all except Murphy and Elerson, who, true to their habits, had each selected a tree to decorate, and were hard at work with their hunting knives on the bark. On Murphy's tree I read: "To hell with Walter Butler."
The reproof struck home; Mount muttered his apology; Murphy offered to carry my rifle if I was fatigued. "It was thoughtless, I admit that," said Elerson, looking backward, uneasily. "But we're close to the patroon's boundary." "We're within bounds now," said Mount. "Fonda's Bush lies over there to the southeast, and the Vlaie is yonder below the mountain-notch.
A sudden and terrible misgiving assailed me. I swallowed, and then said slowly: "Two scalps were taken late last night by Murphy and Elerson. And the scalps were not of the Mohawk. Not Oneida, nor Onondaga, nor Cayuga. Mayaro!" I gasped. "So help me God, those scalps are never Seneca!" "Erie!" he exclaimed with a mixture of rage and horror. And I saw his sinewy hand quivering on his knife-hilt.
If, for any reason, you find these orders impossible of execution, send your report of the False-Faces' council through Sir George Covert, and push forward with the riflemen Mount, Murphy, and Elerson until you are in touch with Gansevoort's outposts at Stanwix. Warn Colonel Gansevoort that Colonel Barry St. Leger has moved from Oswego, and order out a strong scout towards Fort Niagara.
And, as the painted crowd ahead recoiled and shrank aside, Murphy, Elerson, and I went through, smashing out the way with our heavy weapons. How we got through God only knows. I heard Murphy bellowing to Elerson: "We're out! We're out! Pull foot, Davey, or the dirty Scutts will take your hair!"
Above the writhing smoke, now stained pink in the sunset light, a flag crept jerkily up the halyards of a tall flag-staff, higher, higher, until it caught the evening wind aloft and floated lazily out. "It's the new flag," whispered Elerson, in an awed voice. We stared at it, fascinated. Never before had the world seen that flag displayed.
"JOHN HARROW, Major and A. D. C. to the Major-General Commanding. Hot with mortification at the wretched muddle I had already made of my mission, I thrust the paper into my pouch and turned to Elerson. "You know Magdalen Brant?" I asked, impatiently. "Yes, sir." "There is a chance," I said, "that she may return to that house on the hill behind us.
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