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Updated: May 11, 2025
Billy Bones! Hae ye no flints f'r the lads that ride? Losh, mon, we'll no be ganging north the day, an' ye bide droolin' there wi' the blitherin' Jacobites!" "The flints are in McBarron's wagon! Wait, wait, Francy McCraw!" And he hurried away, bawling for the teamster McBarron. "Sir George," I said, "take the chance, in Heaven's name, for I shall not go. Don't dispute; don't stand there!
A hundred lashes here and there, a debtor's jail, a hanging or two, would have made things more cheerful. But I, curse me if I could ever bring myself to use my simplest prerogatives; I can't whip a man, no! I can't hang a man for anything even a sheep-thief has his chance with me like that great villain, Billy Bones, who turned renegade and joined Danny Redstock and the McCraw."
Whereat the fellow in the tavern window fell a-laughing and called down to his companion: "Francy McCraw! Francy McCraw! The Brandt-Meester says a Mohawk fire burns in the north!" "I hear him," cried McCraw, draining his pewter. Dorothy turned sharply. "Oh, is that you, McCraw? What brings you to the Bush?" The lank fellow turned his wild, blue eyes on her, then gazed at the smoke.
"Wait for McCraw!" he panted. "The flag may come yet, you fools! Would you murder him and lose Walter Butler forever? Wait till McCraw comes, I tell you!" "McCraw is riding for his life!" said a chief, fiercely. "It's a lie!" said the officer; "he is drawing them to ambush!" "Give the prisoner to us!" cried the savages, closing in. "After all, what do we care for your Walter Butler!"
"Sorr," he replied, letting go of Mount and standing at a respectful slouch. "Did you get Beacraft there in safety?" "I did, sorr." "Any trouble?" "None, sorr f'r me." I opened the first despatch, looking at him keenly. "Do we take the war-path?" I asked. "We do, sorr," he said, blandly. "McDonald's in the hills wid the McCraw an'ten score renegades.
A shrill cock-crow rang out in the forest. "'Tis the chanticleer scalp-yell of that damned loon, Francy McCraw!" he cried, fiercely. "Give it to 'em, b'ys! Shoot hell into the dommed Tories!" The Caughnawaga rifles rang out from every tree; a white man came running through the wood, and I instinctively held my fire.
Leger routed. Do you understand? Every man in Tryon County is marching on Burgoyne! You, too, will be on the way towards headquarters within the hour!" Trembling from weakness and excitement, I could only look at him in silence. "So all is well," he said, gravely, holding my hands tighter. "Do you understand? All is well, Ormond.... We struck McCraw at Schell's last night and tore him to atoms.
There was a pause; then Murphy touched his cap and stepped back quietly, nodding to Mount, who shuffled forward, pushing the prisoner and darting a venomous glance at me. "Redstock," I said, "where is McCraw?" A torrent of filthy abuse poured out of the prisoner's writhing mouth. He cursed us, threatening us with a terrible revenge from McCraw if we harmed a hair of his head.
He stopped abruptly, listening to a sound that I also heard; the sudden drumming of unshod hoofs on the road behind us. "What the devil " he began, then cocked his rifle; I threw up mine; a shrill cock-crow rang out above the noise of tramping horses; a galloping mass of horsemen burst into view behind us, coming like an avalanche. "McCraw!" shouted Sir George.
"Herman Salisbury!" cried Bowman to a neighbor, "do you hear what this Tory renegade says?" "Quiet! Quiet, there," said Redstock, swaggering out into the road. "Francy McCraw, our good neighbors are woful perplexed by that thread o' birch smoke yonder."
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