Beyond the mill I could see smoke rising from the chimneys of the unseen settlement. Presently a small barefoot boy came out of the mill, looked at us a moment, then turned and legged it up the road tight as he could go. The Oneida, smoking his pipe, saw the lad's hasty flight, and smiled slightly.
"Yes, Little Otter," I said, "they take us for some of Sir John's people. You'll see them coming presently with their guns. Hark! There goes a signal-shot now!"
The smacking crack of a rifle echoed among the hills; a conch-horn's melancholy note sounded persistently.
"Let us go on to the Yellow Tavern," I said; and we rose and limped forward, leading the horse, whose head hung wearily.
Before we reached the Oswaya mill some men in their shirt-sleeves shot at us, then ran down through an orchard, calling on us to halt. One carried a shovel, one a rifle, and the older man, whom I knew as a former tenant of my father, bore an ancient firelock. When I called out to him by name he seemed confused, demanding to know whether we were Whigs or Tories; and when at length he recognized me he appeared to be vastly relieved. It seemed that he, Wemple, and his two sons had been burying apples, and that hearing the shot fired, had started for their homes, where already the alarm had spread. Seeing us, and supposing we had cut him off from the settlement, he had decided to fight his way through to the mill.
"I'm mighty glad you ain't shot, Mr. Renault," he said in his thin, high voice, scratching his chin, and staring hard at the Oneida. "Seein' these here painted injuns sorter riled me up, an' I up an' let ye have it. So did Willum here. Lord, sir, we've been expecting Sir John for a month, so you must kindly excuse us, Mr. Renault!"
He shook his white head and looked up the road where a dozen armed men were already gathered, watching us from behind the fences.
"Sir John is on the Sacandaga," I said. "Why don't you go to Johnstown, Wemple? This is no place for your people."
He stood, rubbing his hard jaw reflectively.
"Waal, sir," he piped, "it's kind er hard to leave all you've got in the world." He added, looking around at his fields: "I'd be a pauper if I quit. Mebbe they won't come here, after all. Mebbe Sir John will go down the Valley."
"Besides, we ain't got our pumpkins in nor the winter corn stacked," observed one of his sons sullenly.
We all turned and walked slowly up the road in the direction of the big yellow tavern, old Wemple shaking his head, and talking all the while in a thin, flat, high-pitched voice: "It seems kind'r hard that Sir John can't quit his pesterin' an' leave folks alone. What call has he to come back a-dodgin' 'round here year after year, a-butcherin' his old neighbors, Mr. Renault? 'Pears to me he's gone crazy as a mad dog, a-whirlin' round and round the same stump, buttin' and bitin' and clawin' up the hull place. Sakes alive! ain't he got no human natur'? Last Tuesday they come to Dan Norris's, five mile down the creek, an' old man Norris he was in the barn makin' a ladder, an' Dan he was gone for the cow. A painted Tory run into the kitchen an' hit the old woman with his hatchet, an' she fetched a screech, an' her darter, 'Liza, she screeched, too. Then a Injun he hit the darter, and he kep' a-kickin' an' a-hittin', an' old man Norris he heard the rumpus out to the barn, an' he run in, an' they pushed him out damn quick an' shot him in the legs. A Tory clubbed him an' ripped his skelp off, the old man on his knees, a-bellowin' piteous, till they knifed him all to slivers an' kicked what was left o' him into the road. The darter she prayed an' yelled, but 'twan't no use, for they cut her that bad with hatchets she was dead when Dan came a-runnin'. 'God!' he says, an' goes at the inimy, swingin' his milk-stool--but, Lord, sir, what can one man do? He was that shot up it 'ud sicken you, Mr. Renault. An' then they was two little boys a-lookin' on at it, too frightened to move; but when the destructives was a-beatin' old Mrs. Norris to death they hid in the fence-hedge. An' they both of 'em might agot clean off, only the littlest one screamed when they tore the skelp off'n the old woman; an' he run off, but a Tory he chased him an' ketched him by the fence, an' he jest held the child's legs between his'n, an' bent him back an' cut his throat, the boy a-squealin' something awful. Then the Tory skelped him an' hung him acrost the fence. The only Norris what come out of it was the lad who lay tight in the fence-scrub--Jimmy. He's up at my house; you'll see him. He come here that night to tell us of them goin's on. He acts kinder stupid, like he ain't got no wits, an' he jests sets an' sets, starin' at nothin'--leastways at nothin' I kin see----"