"Which seems to be a hit at your superior officer, but I'll pa.s.s it over, Hugh, as you're always right at heart though often wrong in the head."

Although the young officers talked much and with apparent lightness, the troop marched with vigilance now. Willet and Tayoga, and Colden, who had profited by bitter experience, saw to it. The hunter and the Onondaga, often a.s.sisted by Robert, scouted on the flanks, and three or four soldiers, who developed rapid skill in the woods, were soon able to help. But Tayoga and Willet were the main reliance, and they found no further trace of Indians. Nevertheless the guard was never relaxed for an instant.

Robert found the march not only pleasant but exhilarating. It appealed to his imaginative and sensitive mind, which magnified everything, and made the tints more vivid and brilliant. To him the forests were larger and grander than they were to the others, and the rivers were wider and deeper. The hours were more intense, he lived every second of them, and the future had a scope and brilliancy that few others would foresee. In company with youths of his own age coming from the largest city of the British colonies, the one that had the richest social traditions, his whole nature expanded, and he cast away much of his reserve. Around the campfires in the evening he became one of the most industrious talkers, and now and then he was carried away so much by his own impulse that all the rest would cease and listen to the mellow, golden voice merely for the pleasure of hearing. Then Tayoga and Willet would look at each other and smile, knowing that Dagaeoga, though all unconsciously, held the center of the stage, and the others were more than willing for him to hold it.

The friendships of the young ripen fast, and under such circ.u.mstances they ripen faster than ever. Robert soon felt that he had known the three young Philadelphians for years, and a warm friendship, destined to last all their lives, in which Tayoga was included, was soon formed. Robert saw that his new comrades, although they did not know much of the forest, were intelligent, staunch and brave, and they saw in him all that Tayoga and Willet saw, which was a great deal.

The heat and dryness increased, and the brown of leaf and gra.s.s deepened. Nearly all the green was gone now, and autumn would soon come. The forest was full of game, and Willet and Tayoga kept them well supplied, yet their progress became slower. Those who had been wounded severely approached the critical stage, and once they stopped two days until all danger had pa.s.sed.

Three days later a fierce summer storm burst upon them. Tayoga had foreseen it, and the whole troop was gathered in the lee of a hill, with all their ammunition protected by blankets, canvas and the skins of deer that they had killed. But the young Philadelphians, unaccustomed to the fury of the elements in the wilderness, looked upon it with awe.

In the west the lightning blazed and the thunder crashed for a long time. Often the forest seemed to swim in a red glare, and Robert himself was forced to shut his eyes before the rapid flashes of dazzling brightness. Then came a great rushing of wind with a mighty rain on its edge, and, when the wind died, the rain fell straight down in torrents more than an hour.

Although they kept their ammunition and other supplies dry the men themselves were drenched to the bone, but the storm pa.s.sed more suddenly than it had come. The clouds parted on the horizon, then all fled away. The last raindrop fell and a shining sun came out in a hot blue sky. As the men resumed a drooping march their clothes dried fast in the fiery rays and their spirits revived.

When night came they were dry again, and youth had taken no harm. The next day they struck an Indian trail, but both Willet and Tayoga said it had been made by less than a dozen warriors, and that they were going north.

"It's my belief," said Willet, "that they were warriors from the Ohio country on their way to join the French along the Canadian border."

"And they're not staying to meet us," said Colden. "I'm afraid, Will, it'll be some time before you have a chance to show your unbottled Quaker valor."

"Perhaps not so long as you think," replied Wilton, who had plenty of penetration. "I don't claim to be any great forest rover, although I do think I've learned something since I left Philadelphia, but I imagine that our building of a fort in the woods will draw 'em. The Indian runners will soon be carrying the news of it, and then they'll cl.u.s.ter around us like flies seeking sugar."

"You're right, Mr. Wilton," said Willet. "After we build this fort it's as sure as the sun is in the heavens that we'll have to fight for it."

Two days later they reached the site for their little fortress which they named Fort Refuge, because they intended it as a place in which harried settlers might find shelter. It was a hill near a large creek, and the source of a small brook lay within the grounds they intended to occupy, securing to them an unfailing supply of good water in case of siege.

Now, the young soldiers entered upon one of the most arduous tasks of the war, to build a fort, which was even more trying to them than battle. Arms and backs ached as Colden, Wilton and Carson, advised by Willet, drove them hard. A strong log blockhouse was erected, and then a stout palisade, enclosing the house and about an acre of ground, including the precious spring which spouted from under a ledge of stone at the very wall of the blockhouse itself. Behind the building they raised a shed in which the horses could be sheltered, as all of them foresaw a long stay, dragging into winter with its sleet and snow, and it was important to save the animals.

Robert, Willet and Tayoga had a roving commission, and, as they could stay with Colden and his command as long as they chose, they chose accordingly to remain where they thought they could do the most good. Robert took little part in the hunting, but labored with the soldiers on the building, although it was not the kind of work to which his mind turned.

The blockhouse itself, was divided into a number of rooms, in which the soldiers who were not on guard could sleep, and they had blankets and the skins of the larger animals the hunters killed for beds. Venison jerked in great quant.i.ties was stored away in case of siege, and the whole forest was made to contribute to their larder. The work was hard, but it toughened the sinews of the young soldiers, and gave them an occupation in which they were interested.

Before it was finished they were joined by another small detachment with loaded pack horses, which by the same kind of miracle had come safely through the wilderness. Colden now had a hundred men, fifty horses and powder and lead for all the needs of which one could think.

"If we only had a cannon!" he said, looking proudly at their new blockhouse, "I think I'd build a platform for it there on the roof, and then we could sweep the forest in every direction. Eh, Will, my lad?"

"But as we haven't," said Wilton, "we'll have to do the sweeping with our rifles."

"And our men are good marksmen, as they showed in that fight with St. Luc. But it seems a world away from Philadelphia, doesn't it, Will? I wonder what they're doing there!"

"Counting their gains in the West India trade, looking at the latest fashions from England that have come on the ships up the Delaware, building new houses out Germantown way, none of them thinking much of the war, except old Ben Franklin, who pegs forever at the governor of the Province, the Legislature, and every influential man to take action before the French and Indians seize the whole border."

"I hope Franklin will stir 'em up, and that they won't forget us out here in the woods. For us at least the French and Indians are a reality."

Meanwhile summer had turned into autumn, and autumn itself was pa.s.sing.

CHAPTER V

THE RUNNER

Fort Refuge, the stronghold raised by young arms, was the most distant point in the wilderness held by the Anglo-American forces, and for a long time it was cut off entirely from the world. No message came out of the great forest that rimmed it round, but Colden had been told to build it and hold it until he had orders to leave it, and he and his men waited patiently, until word of some kind should come or they should be attacked by the French and Indian forces that were gathering continually in the north.

They saw the autumn reach its full glory. The wilderness glowed in intense yellows and reds. The days grew cool, and the nights cold, the air was crisp and fresh like the breath of life, the young men felt their muscles expand and their courage rise, and they longed for the appearance of the enemy, sure that behind their stout palisade they would be able to defeat whatever numbers came.

Tayoga left them early one morning for a visit to his people. The leaves were falling then under a sharp west wind, and the sky had a cold, hard tint of blue steel. Winter was not far away, but the day suited a runner like Tayoga who wished to make speed through the wilderness. He stood for a moment or two at the edge of the forest, a strong, slender figure outlined against the brown, waved his hand to his friends watching on the palisade, and then disappeared.

"A great Indian," said young Wilton thoughtfully. "I confess that I never knew much about the red men or thought much about them until I met him. I don't recall having come into contact with a finer mind of its kind."

"Most of the white people make the mistake of undervaluing the Indians," said Robert, "but we'll learn in this war what a power they are. If the Hodenosaunee had turned against us we'd have been beaten already."

"At any rate, Tayoga is a n.o.ble type. Since I had to come into the forest I'm glad to meet such fellows as he. Do you think, Lennox, that he'll get through safely?"

Robert laughed.

"Get through safely?" he repeated. "Why, Tayoga is the fastest runner among the Indian nations, and they train for speed. He goes like the wind, he never tires, night and day are the same to him, he's so light of foot that he could pa.s.s through a band of his own comrades and they would never know he was there, and yet his own ears are so keen that he can hear the leaves falling a hundred yards away. The path from here to the vale of Onondaga may be lined on either side with the French and the hostile tribes, standing as thick as trees in the forest, but he will flit between them as safely and easily as you and I would ride along a highroad into Philadelphia. He will arrive at the vale of Onondaga, unharmed, at the exact minute he intends to arrive, and he will return, reaching Fort Refuge also on the exact day, and at the exact hour and minute he has already selected."

The young Quaker surveyed Robert with admiration and then laughed.

"What they tell of you is true," he said. "In truth that was a most gorgeous and rounded speech you made about your friend. I don't recall finer and more flowing periods! What vividness! What imagery! I'm proud to know you, Lennox!"

Robert reddened and then laughed.

"I do grow enthusiastic when I talk about Tayoga," he said, "but you'll see that what I predict will come to pa.s.s. He's probably told Willet just when he'll be back at Fort Refuge. We'll ask him."

The hunter informed them that Tayoga intended to take exactly ten days.

"This is Monday," he said. "He'll be here a week from next Thursday at noon."

"But suppose something happens to detain him," said Wilton, "suppose the weather is too bad for traveling, or suppose a lot of other things that can happen easily."

Willet shrugged his shoulders.

"In such a case as this where Tayoga is concerned," he said, "we don't suppose anything, we go by certainties. Before he left, Tayoga settled the day and the hour when he would return and it's not now a problem or a question. He has disposed of the subject."

"I can't quite see it that way," said Wilton tenaciously. "I admit that Tayoga is a wonderful fellow, but he cannot possibly tell the exact hour of his return from such a journey as the one he has undertaken."

"You wait and see," said the hunter in the utmost good nature. "You think you know Tayoga, but you don't yet know him fully."

"If I were not a Quaker I'd wager a small sum of money that he does not come at the time appointed," said Wilton.

"Then it's lucky for your pocket that you're a Quaker," laughed Willet.

It turned much colder that very afternoon, and the raw edge of winter showed. The wind from the northwest was bitter and the dead leaves fell in showers. At dusk a chilling rain began, and the young soldiers, shivering, were glad enough to seek the shelter of the blockhouse, where a great fire was blazing on the broad hearth. They had made many rude camp stools and sitting down on one before the blaze Wilton let the pleasant warmth fall upon his face.