hard, I saw the trees under which I had played as a
child, now all shaggy and unpruned, tufted thick with suckers, and
ringed with heaps of small rotting apples, lying in the grass as they
had fallen. With a whirring, thunderous roar, a brood of crested grouse
rose from the orchard as I ran on, startling me, almost unnerving me.
The next moment I was at the shallow water's edge, shouting across at a
blockhouse of logs; and a Ranger rose up and waved his furry cap at me,
beckoning me to cross, and calling to me by name.

"Is that you, Dave Elerson?" I shouted.

"Yes, sir. Is there bad news?"

"Butler is in the Valley!" I answered, and waded into the cold, brown
current, ankle-deep in golden bottom-sands. Breathless, dripping thrums
trailing streams of water after me, I toiled up the bank and stood
panting, leaning against the log hut.

"Where is the post?" I breathed.

"Out, sir, since last night."

"Which way?" I groaned.

"Johnstown way, Mr. Renault. The Weasel, Tim Murphy, and Nick Stoner
was a-smellin' after moccasin-prints on the Mayfield trail. About sunup
they made smoke-signals at me that they was movin' Kingsboro way on a
raw trail."

He brought me his tin cup full of rum and water. I drank a small
portion of it, then rinsed throat and mouth, still standing.

"Butler and Ross, with a thousand rifles and baggage-wagons, are making
for the Tribes Hill ford," I said. "A hundred Cayugas, Mohawks, and
Tories burned Oswaya just after sunrise, and are this moment pushing on
to Johnstown. We've got to get there before them, Elerson."

"Yes, sir," he said simply, glancing at the flint in his rifle.

"Is there any chance of our picking up the scout?"

"If we don't, it's a dead scout for sure," he returned gravely. "Tim
Murphy wasn't lookin' for scalpin' parties from the north."

I handed him his cup, tightened belt and breast-straps, trailed rifle,
and struck the trail at a jog; and behind me trotted David Elerson,
famed in ballad and story, which he could not read--nor could Tim
Murphy, either, for that matter, whose learning lay in things
unwritten, and whose eloquence flashed from the steel lips of a rifle
that never spoke in vain.

Like ice-chilled wine the sweet, keen mountain air blew in our faces,
filtering throat and nostrils as we moved; the rain that the frost had
promised was still far away--perhaps not rain at all, but snow.

On we pressed, first breath gone, second breath steady; and only fo