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His high-pitched, garrulous chatter, and the horrid purport of it, were to s told without tremor or emphasis or other e sons--to hear these incredible horrors babbled by an old ht, affectedsense of helplessness that I could find no word to reassure either hi anxiously if we had news froa or froe theo to Johnstown; but they shook their heads, so the co of Walter Butler to rise andthat the Yellow Tavern, which had been fortified, was safer than Albany itself None would leave house or land; and whether these people really believed that they could hold out against a sudden onslaught, I never knew They were the usual mixture of races, some of low Dutch extraction, like the Vanderveers and Weh Dutch, like the Kleins; and, around reeted people who in peaceful days had been settled in these parts, and so them had worked for my father--honest, simple folk, like Patrick Farris, with his pretty Dutch wife and tow-headed youngsters; and John Warren, once room, and Jacob Klock, kinsman of the well-known people of that name

The Oneida, pressed and questioned on every side, replied in guarded monosyllables; poor Lyn Montour, wrapped to the eyes in her blanket, passed for an Iroquois youth, and was questioned mercilessly, until I interposed and opened the tavern door for her and for Little Otter

"I tell you, We on the tavern porch to address the people, "there is no safety here for you if Walter Butler or Sir John arrive here in force It will be hatchet and torch again--the sae Dutch obstinacy, or Gerrain belt it is different; there the fared to expose themselves because our army needs bread But your corn and buckwheat and pumpkins and apples can be left for a week or two until we see how this thing is going to end Be sensible; stack what you can, but don't wait to thresh or grind Bury your apples; let the cider go; harness up; gather your cattle and sheep; pack up the clock and feather bed, and move to Johnstoith your families In a week or two you will knohether this country is to be given to the torch again, or whether, by God's grace, Colonel Willett is to send Walter Butler packing! I'll wait here a day for you Think it over