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"A blind man could see that, but all the same Beardsley means to even up with you 'cause he was ironed and you wasn't. He is first leftenant of the Home Guards, Colonel Shelby being the captain, and he's going to take you out'n your bed some night and send you to Williamston." "What for?" exclaimed Marcy. "And put you in jail there," continued Hawkins.
Used as he was to easy victory, this first disappointment of his campaign seemed bodeful of evil days to come. Yet when mischief speedily befell, it wore so curious a guise that Shelby missed its import and laughed it aside for a random fling of jocund Fate.
Worsting the choleric physician in argument was a mere matter of keeping one's own temper, and Shelby took no pride in his victory. It was a relief to know that he knew so little, but the possibility remained that, in the weakness of convalescence, Bernard might let fall details more damaging than Dr. Crandall's tissue of half-knowledge and inference.
Clair, the Governor of the Northwestern Territory, wrote to Shelby to warn him of what was being done, and Wayne, who was a much more formidable person than Shelby or Clark or any of their backers, took prompt steps to prevent the expedition from starting, by building a fort near the mouth of the Ohio, and ordering his lieutenants to hold themselves in readiness for any action he might direct.
He had had to cope with no such outrageous problem in the whole of his honorable career, and in a state of mind bordering panic he packed his grip and posted to New York for a conference with the Boss, leaving Shelby to temporize as best he might. Nor was Shelby inactive.
These same hunters were with Shelby, and at once said they knew every inch of the way. Two captured Tories were compelled to tell how the British leader was dressed. It was now three o'clock. It had stopped raining, and the sun was shining. All was hurry and bustle. The plan was to surround the hill, to give the men a better chance to fire upward, without firing into each other.
Captain Inman had been ordered to fire and retreat. This stratagem, suggested by Captain Inman himself, was successful in its object. The enemy advanced in rapid pursuit and in great confusion, believing that the whole American force was routed. When they approached the rude breast-work of Shelby, they received from his riflemen a most destructive fire, which carried great slaughter among them.
He had come that very day to tell Eliza what he meant to do. As soon as Mr. and Mrs. Shelby stopped talking, Eliza crept away to her own room, where little Harry was sleeping. There he lay with his pretty curls around his face. His rosy mouth was half open, his fat little hands thrown out over the bed-clothes, and a smile like a sunbeam upon his face.
There were at least a dozen persons in the post-office, besides Tom Allison, who knew that Beardsley had other and better reasons for quitting the profitable business in which he had been engaged, and three of them were Shelby, Dillon, and the postmaster.
On the appointed afternoon she saw his horse and buggy brought from the Tuscarora House and hitched at the curb below his office, and as it lacked little of the hour set she thrust home the last hat-pin and stood jacketed and gloved by a window, waiting his coming. The hour struck and brought no Shelby, though punctuality was the first article of his creed.
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