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We were a hearty and good-tempered company, and spent our evenings together most agreeably, discussing the campaign and the various small happenings of the camp. But as Spiltdorph shrewdly remarked, we were none of us so sanguinary as we had been a year before. I have since observed that the more a man sees of war, the less his eagerness for blood.
"There is one missing," said the man, looking about him. "Where is he?" "He is here," said Spiltdorph, opening his coat. "He is not dead. He may yet live." The father looked at the boy a moment, then fell on his knees and kissed him. "Thank God!" he cried, and the tears burst forth. We waited in silence until the storm of grief was past.
They were going about the task in unwonted silence, doubtless because of the nearness of our troops, and a half dozen bodies, two of women and four of children, scattered on the ground before the door, showed how completely they had done their work. Even as we looked, two of them picked up the body of one of the women and threw it into the burning house. "The devils!" groaned Spiltdorph.
Ah, the stories they told us! Tragedies such as that which Spiltdorph and I had come upon had been repeated scores of times. The settler who had left his cabin at daybreak in search of game, or to carry his furs to the nearest post, returned at sundown to find only a smoking heap of ashes where his home had been, and among them the charred and mutilated bodies of his wife and children.
If you still think of vengeance, you can march with us against the Indians and the French who set them on." He made a gesture of assent, and we set off through the forest. "Stewart," asked Spiltdorph, in a low voice, after we had walked some time in silence, "how does it happen you knew the burial service?" "I have read it many times in the prayer-book," I answered simply.
We dragged out the body of the woman which had been thrown within, in the hope that a spark of life might yet remain, but she was quite dead. Beneath the warrior Spiltdorph had shot we found the child. It was a boy of some six or seven years, and so covered with blood that it seemed it must be dead.
"What under heaven could have caused that?" asked Spiltdorph. "Wild turkeys," I answered quickly, for I had often seen the like under beeches and oaks as well as chestnuts. "Come on," I added, "perhaps they are not far away." "All right," said Spiltdorph, "a wild turkey would go exceeding well on our table;" and he followed me into the forest.
Perhaps we can get some yet." We tore through a bit of marshy ground, up a slight hill, and came suddenly to the edge of a little clearing. One glance into it sent me headlong behind a bush, and I tripped up Spiltdorph beside me. "Good God, man!" he cried, but I had my hand over his mouth before he could say more. "Be still," I whispered "an you value your life. Look over there."
It was certain that the general was taking no chance of ambuscade, however safe the road might seem. We were soon in place, Captain Waggoner himself in command of one party, Spiltdorph of the second, I of the third, and Lieutenant Wright of the fourth. As we took our places, I could see something of the disposition of our force and the contour of the ground.
At last he wrapped the coat about the child again, and came to us where we stood beside the grave. "Friends," he said, "does either of you know the burial service? These were virtuous and Christian women, and would wish a Christian burial." Spiltdorph sadly shook his head, and the man turned to me. Could I do it? I trembled at the thought. Yet how could I refuse?
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