rn revel. I do not
mean to stop these magistrates, Mr. Renault, only they _will_ wander on
the highway, under my very pistols, provoking 'em to fly out!" He looked
at me and furtively licked the stem of his clay pipe.

"So you leave for the north to-night?" I asked, amused.

"Yes, sir. There's a certain Walter Butler in this town, arrived like a
hen-hawk from the clouds, and peep! peep! we downy chicks must scurry
to the forest, lad, or there'll be a fine show on the gallows yonder
and two good rifles idle in the hills of Tryon."

"You know Walter Butler?"

"Know him? Yes, sir. I had him at my mercy once--over my rifle-sights!
Ah, well--he rode away--and had it not been young Cardigan who stayed
my trigger-finger--But let that pass, too. What is he here for?"

"To ask Sir Henry Clinton's sanction of a plan to burn New York and
fling the army on West Point, while he and Sir John Johnson and Colonel
Ross strike the grain country in the north and lay it and the frontier
in ashes."

There was a silence, then a quiet laugh from Mount.

"West Point is safe, I think," he murmured.

"But Tryon?" urged the Weasel; "how will it go with Tryon County,
Jack?"

Another silence.

"We'd best be getting back to Willett," said Mount quietly. "As for me,
my errand is done, and the strange, fishy smells of New York town
stifle me. I'm stale and timid, and I like not the shape of the gallows
yonder. My health requires the half-light of the woods, Mr. Renault,
and the friendly shadows which lie at hand like rat-holes in a granary.
I've drunk all the ale at the Bull's-Head--weak stuff it was--and
they've sent for more, but I can't wait. So we're off to the north
to-night, friend, and we'll presently rinse our throats of this salt
wind, which truly inspires a noble thirst, yet tells nothing to a nose
made to sniff the inland breezes."

He held out his hand, saying, "So you can learn no news of this place
called Thendara?"

"I may learn yet. Walter Butler said to-day that I knew it. Yet I can
not recall anything save the name. Is it Delaware? And yet I know it
must be Iroquois, too."

"It might be Cayuga, for all I know," he said. "I never learned their
cursed jargon and never mean to. My business is to stop their
forest-loping--and I do when I can." He spoke bitterly, like that
certain class of forest-runners who never spare an Indian, never
understand that anything but evil can come of any blood but white. With
them argument