shed, leaving a desert amid
charred stumps and the white phantoms of dead pines. I was ever averse
to the cutting of the forests here, except for selected crops of
ripened timber to be replaced by natural growth ere the next crop had
ripened; and Sir William Johnson, who was wise in such matters, set us
a wholesome example which our yeomen have not followed. And already
lands cleared fifty years since have run out to the sandy subsoil; yet
still the axes flash, still the great trees groan and fall, crashing
through and smashing their helpless fellows; and in God's own garden
waters shrink, and fire passes, and the deer flee away, and rain fails,
because man passes in his folly, and the path of the fool is
destruction.

Where Thendara was, green trees flourish to the glory of the Holder of
Heaven.

Where the forest whitens with men, the earth mourns in ashes for the
lost Thendara--Thendara! Thendara no more!

CHAPTER XIV

THE BATTLE OF JOHNSTOWN

Two weeks of maddening inactivity followed the arrival at the Yellow
Tavern of an express from Colonel Willett, carrying orders for me to
remain at Oswaya until further command, bury all apples, pit the corn,
and mill what buckwheat the settlers could spare as a deposit for the
army.

Not a word since that time had I heard from Johnstown, although it was
rumored in the settlement that the Rangers had taken the field in
scouts of five, covering the frontier to get into touch with the
long-expected forces that might come from Niagara under Ross and Walter
Butler, or from the east under St. Leger and Sir John, or even perhaps
under Haldimand.

Never had I known such hot impatience, such increasing anxiety; never
had I felt so bitterly that the last chance was vanishing for me to
strike an honest blow in a struggle wherein I, hitherto inert, had
figured so meanly, so ingloriously.

To turn farmer clodhopper now was heart-breaking. Yet all I could do
was to organize a sort of home guard there, detail a different yokel
every day to watch the road to Varicks, five miles below, by which the
enemy must arrive if they marched with artillery and wagons, as it was
rumored they would. At night I placed a sentinel by the mill to guard
against scalping parties, and another on the hill to watch the West and
South. Meager defenses, one might say, and even the tavern was
unstockaded, and protected only by loops and oaken shutters; but every
man and woman was demanded for the h