In the Days of Poor Richard Part 50

Fortunately this party was not pursued. Nearly every man in it had his gun and ammunition. The scout had picked up a goodly outfit of axes and shovels and put them in the boats. He organized his retreat with sentries, rear guard, signals and a plan of defense. The carriers were s.h.i.+fted every hour. After two days of hard travel through the deep woods they came to a lake more than two miles long and about half as wide. Their provisions were gone save a few biscuit and a sack of salt. There were sixty-four men in the party.

Solomon organized a drive. A great loop of weary men was flung around the end of the lake more than a mile from its sh.o.r.e. Then they began approaching the camp, barking like dogs as they advanced. In this manner three deer and a moose were driven to the water and slain.

These relieved the pangs of hunger and insured the party, for some little time, against starvation. They were, however, a long way from help in an unknown wilderness with a prospect of deadly hards.h.i.+ps.

Solomon knew that the streams in this territory ran toward the sea and for that reason he had burdened the party with boats and tools.

The able scout explored a long stretch of the lake's outlet which flowed toward the south. It had a considerable channel but not enough water for boats or canoes even. That night he began cutting timber for a dam at the end of the lake above its outlet. Near sundown, next day, the dam was finished and the water began rising. A rain hurried the process. Two days later the big water plane had begun to spill into its outlet and flood the near meadow flats. The party got the boats in place some twenty rods below and ready to be launched. Solomon drove the plug out of his dam and the pent-up water began to pour through.

The stream was soon flooded and the boats floating. Thus with a spirited water horse to carry them they began their journey to the sea.

Men stood in the bow and stern of each boat with poles to push it along and keep it off the banks. Some ten miles below they swung into a large river and went on, more swiftly, with the aid of oars and paddles.

Thus Solomon became the hero of this ill-fated expedition. After that he was often referred to in the army as the River Maker, although the ingenious man was better known as the Lightning Hurler, that phrase having been coined in Jack's account of his adventures with Solomon in the great north bush. In the ranks he had been regarded with a kind of awe as a most redoubtable man of mysterious and uncanny gifts since he and Jack had arrived in the Highlands fresh from their adventure of "s.h.i.+fting the skeer"--as Solomon was wont to put it--whereupon, with no great delay, the rash Colonel Burley had his Binkussing. The scout was often urged to make a display of his terrible weapon but he held his tongue about it, nor would he play with the lightning or be induced to hurl it upon white men.

"That's only fer to save a man from bein' burnt alive an' et up," he used to say.

At the White Pine Mills near the sea they were taken aboard a lumber s.h.i.+p bound for Boston. Solomon returned with a great and growing influence among the common soldiers. He had spent a week in Newport and many of his comrades had reached the camp of Was.h.i.+ngton in advance of the scout's arrival.

When Solomon--a worn and ragged veteran--gained the foot of the Highlands, late in October, he learned to his joy that Stony Point and King's Ferry had been abandoned by the British. He found Jack at Stony Point and told him the story of his wasted months. Then Jack gave his friend the news of the war.

D'Estaing with a French fleet had arrived early in the month. This had led to the evacuation of Newport and Stony Point to strengthen the British position in New York. But South Carolina had been conquered by the British. It took seven hundred dollars to buy a pair of shoes with the money of that state, so that great difficulties had fallen in the way of arming and equipping a capable fighting force.

"I do not talk of it to others, but the troubles of our beloved Was.h.i.+ngton are appalling," Jack went on. "The devil loves to work with the righteous, waiting his time. He had his envoy even among the disciples of Jesus. He is among us in the person of Benedict Arnold--lover of gold. The new recruits are mostly of his stripe. He is their Captain. They demand big bounties. The faithful old guard, who have fought for the love of liberty and are still waiting for their pay, see their new comrades taking high rewards. It isn't fair.

Naturally the old boys hate the newcomers. They feel like putting a coat of tar and feathers on every one of them. You and I have got to go to work and put the gold seekers out of the temple. They need to hear some of your plain talk. Our greatest peril is Arnoldism."

"You jest wait an' hear to me," said Solomon. "I got suthin' to say that'll make their ears bleed pa.s.sin' through 'em."

The evening of his arrival in camp Solomon talked at the general a.s.sembly of the troops. He was introduced with most felicitous good humor by Was.h.i.+ngton's able secretary, Mr. Alexander Hamilton. The ingenious and rare accomplishments of the scout and his heroic loyalty were rubbed with the rhetoric of an able talker until they shone.

"Boys, ye kint make no hero out o' an old scrag o' a man like me,"

Solomon began. "You may b'lieve what Mr. Hamilton says but I know better. I been chased by Death an' grabbed by the coat-tails frequent, but I been lucky enough to pull away. That's all. You new recruits 'a' been told how great ye be. I'm a-goin' fer to tell ye the truth.

I don't like the way ye look at this job. It ain't no job o' workin'

out. We're all workin' fer ourselves. It's my fight an' it's yer fight. I won't let no king put a halter on my head an', with the stale in one hand an' a whip in t' other, lead me up to the tax collector to pay fer his fun. I'd ruther fight him. Some o' you has fam'lies.

Don't worry 'bout 'em. They'll be took care of. I got some confidence in the Lord myself. Couldn't 'a' lived without it. Look a' me. I'm so ragged that I got patches o' sunburn on my back an' belly. I'm what ye might call a speckled man. My feet 'a' been bled. My body looks like an ol' tree that has been clawed by a bear an' bit by woodp.e.c.k.e.rs.

I've stuck my poker into the fire o' h.e.l.l. I've been singed an' frost bit an' half starved an' ripped by bullets, an' all the pay I want is liberty an' it ain't due yit. I've done so little I'm 'shamed o'

myself. Money! Lord G.o.d o' Israel! If any man has come here fer to make money let him stan' up while we all pray fer his soul. These 'ere United States is your hum an' my hum an' erway down the trail afore us they's millions 'pon millions o' folks comin' an' we want 'em to be free. We're a-fightin' fer 'em an' fer ourselves. If ye don't fight ye'll git nothin' but taxes to pay the cost o' lickin' ye. It'll cost a hundred times more to be licked than it'll cost to win. Ye won't find any o' the ol' boys o' Was.h.i.+ngton squealin' erbout pay. We're lookin' fer brothers an' not pigs. Git down on yer knees with me, every one o' ye, while the Chaplain asks G.o.d A'mighty to take us all into His army."

The words of Solomon put the new men in better spirit and there was little complaining after that. They called that speech "The Binkussing of the Recruits." Solomon was the soul of the old guard.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN WHICH ARNOLD AND HENRY THORNHILL ARRIVE IN THE HIGHLANDS

Margaret and her mother returned to England with David Hartley soon after Colonel Irons had left France. The British Commissioner had not been able to move the philosopher. Later, from London, he had sent a letter to Franklin seeking to induce America to desert her new ally.

Franklin had answered:

"I would think the destruction of our whole country and the extirpation of our people preferable to the infamy of abandoning our allies. We may lose all but we shall act in good faith."

Here again was a new note in the history of diplomatic intercourse.

Colonel Irons' letter to Margaret Hare, with the greater part of which the reader is familiar, was forwarded by Franklin to his friend Jonathan s.h.i.+pley, Bishop of St. Asaph, and by him delivered. Another letter, no less vital to the full completion of the task of these pages was found in the faded packet. It is from General Sir Benjamin Hare to his wife in London and is dated at New York, January 10, 1780. This is a part of the letter:

"I have a small house near the barracks with our friend Colonel Ware and the best of negro slaves and every comfort. It is now a loyal city, secure from attack, and, but for the soldiers, one might think it a provincial English town. This war may last for years and as the sea is, for a time, quite safe, I have resolved to ask you and Margaret to take pa.s.sage on one of the first troop s.h.i.+ps sailing for New York, after this reaches you. Our friend Sir Roger and his regiments will be sailing in March as I am apprised by a recent letter. I am, by this post, requesting him to offer you suitable accommodations and to give you all possible a.s.sistance. The war would be over now if Was.h.i.+ngton would only fight. His caution is maddening. His army is in a desperate plight, but he will not come out and meet us in the open. He continues to lean upon the strength of the hills. But there are indications that he will be abandoned by his own army."

Those "indications" were the letters of one John Anderson, who described himself as a prominent officer in the American army. The letters were written to Sir Henry Clinton. They asked for a command in the British army and hinted at the advantage to be derived from facts, of prime importance, in the writer's possession.

Margaret and her mother sailed with Sir Roger Waite and his regiments on the tenth of March and arrived in New York on the twenty-sixth of April. _Rivington's Gazette_ of the twenty-eighth of that month describes an elaborate dinner given by Major John Andre, Adjutant-General of the British Army, at the City Hotel to General Sir Benjamin Hare and Lady Hare and their daughter Margaret. Indeed the conditions in New York differed from those in the camp of Was.h.i.+ngton as the day differs from the night.

A Committee of Congress had just finished a visit to Was.h.i.+ngton's Highland camp. They reported that the army had received no pay in five months; that it often went "sundry successive days without meat"; that it had scarcely six days' provisions ahead; that no forage was available; that the medical department had neither sugar, tea, chocolate, wine nor spirits.

The month of May, 1780, gave Was.h.i.+ngton about the worst pinch in his career. It was the pinch of hunger. Supplies had not arrived. Famine had entered the camp and begun to threaten its life. Soldiers can get along without pay but they must have food. Mutiny broke out among the recruits.

In the midst of this trouble, Lafayette, the handsome French Marquis, then twenty-three years old, arrived on his white horse, after a winter in Paris, bringing word that a fleet and army from France were heading across the sea. This news revived the drooping spirit of the army.

Soon boats began to arrive from down the river with food from the east.

The crisis pa.s.sed. In the north a quiet summer followed. The French fleet with six thousand men under Rochambeau arrived at Newport, July tenth, and were immediately blockaded by the British as was a like expedition fitting out at Brest. So Was.h.i.+ngton could only hold to his plan of prudent waiting.

2

On a clear, warm day, late in July, 1780, a handsome coach drawn by four horses crossed King's Ferry and toiled up the Highland road. It carried Benedict Arnold and his wife and their baggage. Jack and Solomon pa.s.sed and recognized them.

"What does that mean, I wonder?" Jack queried.

"Dun know," Solomon answered.

"I'm scared about it," said the younger scout. "I am afraid that this money seeker has the confidence of Was.h.i.+ngton. He has been a good fighting man. That goes a long way with the Chief."

Colonel Irons stopped his horse. "I am of half a mind to go back," he declared.

"Why?"

"I didn't tell the General half that Reed said to me. It was so bitter and yet I believe it was true. I ought to have told him. Perhaps I ought now to go and tell him."

"There's time 'nough," said Solomon. "Wait till we git back.

Sometimes I've thought the Chief needed advice but it's allus turned out that I was the one that needed it."

The two hors.e.m.e.n rode on in silence. It was the middle of the afternoon of that memorable July day. They were bound for the neutral territory between the American and British lines, infested by "cow boys" from the south and "skinners" from the north who were raiding the farms of the settlers and driving away their cattle to be sold to the opposing armies. The two scouts were sent to learn the facts and report upon them. They parted at a cross-road. It was near sundown when at a beautiful brook, bordered with spearmint and wild iris, Jack watered and fed his horse and sat down to eat his luncheon. He was thinking of Arnold and the new danger when he discovered that a man stood near him. The young scout had failed to hear his approach--a circ.u.mstance in no way remarkable since the road was little traveled and covered with moss and creeping herbage. He thought not of this, however, but only of the face and form and manner of the stranger. The face was that of a man of middle age. The young man wrote in a letter:

"It was a singularly handsome face, smooth shaven and well shaped with large, dark eyes and a skin very clean and perfect--I had almost said it was transparent. Add to all this a look of friendliness and masterful dignity and you will understand why I rose to my feet and took off my hat. His stature was above my own, his form erect. I remember nothing about his clothes save that they were dark in color and seemed to be new and admirably fitted.

"'You are John Irons, Jr., and I am Henry Thornhill,' said he. 'I saw you at Kinderhook where I used to live. I liked you then and, since the war began, I have known of your adventures.'

"'I did not flatter myself that any one could know of them except my family, and my fellow scout and General Was.h.i.+ngton,' I answered.

"'Well, I happen to have had the chance to know of them,' he went on.

'You are a true friend of the great cause. I saw you pa.s.sing a little way back and I followed for I have something to say to you.'

"'I shall be glad to hear of it,' was my answer.