carce
endure them, yet cling to them the more desperately.

"I did not mean to write this--truly I did not! But here, in
the dusk, I can see your face just as it looked when you said
good-bye!--so close that I could take it in my arms despite
my vows and yours!

"Help me to reason; for even God cannot, or will not, help
me; knowing, perhaps, the dreadful after-life He has doomed
me to for all eternity. If it is true that marriages are made
in heaven, where was mine made? Can you answer? I cannot.
(The whimper of the whippoorwill again!) Dearest, good-bye.
Where my body lies matters nothing so that you hold my soul a
little while. Yet, even of that they must rob you one day.
Oh, if even in dying there is no happiness, where, where does
it abide? Three places only have I heard of: the world,
heaven, and hell. God forgive me, but I think the last could
cover all.

"Say that you love me! Say it to the forest, to the wind.
Perhaps my soul, which follows you, may hear if you only say
it. (Once more the ghost-call of the whippoorwill!) Dear lad,
good-bye!"

XVII

THE FLAG

Day after day our little scout of four traversed the roads and forests
of the Kingsland district, warning the people at the outlying
settlements and farms that the county militia-call was out, and that
safety lay only in conveying their families to the forts and responding
to the summons of authority without delay.

Many obeyed; some rash or stubborn settlers prepared to defend their
homes. A few made no response, doubtless sympathizing with their Tory
friends who had fled to join McDonald or Sir John Johnson in the North.

Rumors were flying thick, every settlement had its full covey; every
cross-road tavern buzzed with gossip. As we travelled from settlement to
settlement, we, too, heard something of what had happened in distant
districts: how the Schoharie militia had been called out; how one
Huetson had been captured as he was gathering a band of Tories to join
the Butlers; how a certain Captain Ball had raised a company of
sixty-three royalists at Beaverdam and was fled to join Sir John; how
Captain George Mann, of the militia, refused service, declaring himself
a royalist, and disbanding his company; how Adam Crysler had thrown his
important influence in favor of the King, and that the inhabitants of
Tryon County were gloomy and depressed