Page 54 (1/1)

"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! ny 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 hihts! Ah, well--he rode away--and had it not been young Cardigan who stayed er--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 o with Tryon County, Jack?"

Another silence

"We'd best be getting back to Willett," said Mount quietly "As for e, fishy smells of New York town stifle allows yonder My health requires the half-light of the woods, Mr Renault, and the friendly shadohich 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 ht, 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 a, for all I know," he said "I never learned their cursed jargon and never --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 cou