CHAPTER IX.

How Ned Won the "Bubble Reputation", at
the Cannon's Mouth.

Betty thought of hell, the hell of man's inhumanity to man, as she stood by her window in Newark, looking down a street of fire. From a hundred roofs red flames were bursting. Blue-coated men rushed out of smoke-shrouded doors with their arms full of plunder. Outside in the deep snow and bitter cold, a crowd of women and children moved about aimlessly, or stood still as if stupefied by the sight of the ruin round them.

The Americans had feared to stay in bitterly hostile Niagara after navigation had stopped, and they could not be helped by their fleet. Sooner than risk a winter siege there, they had blown up Forts George and Erie and were then burning Newark by way of retaliation.

Betty waited to see what their fate was to be. Sentries at her door kept the women from going out or the plunderers from coming in. At last Eli, who had almost recovered, came back—"This house will be spared," he told her formally, "I have represented it as the home of my sister, an American, and I came to tell you, you can take in whom you like. There are one hundred and fifty families homeless, but you may have room for the sick. I will see the house is guarded."

"You will find this burning of Newark is worse than a crime, it is a blunder," exclaimed Betty, and in his heart Eli agreed with her, though he said nothing.

The black, far-rolling smoke of Newark, gave the alarm at Twenty Mile Creek, and over nine hundred men—the old Irish regiment of the "Lightfoot", with a goodly number of Canadians added to its ranks—marched hot-foot to rescue, or avenge, if wrong had been done. The Americans had all crossed the river, and the sight of the burnt and plundered homes roused even Ferguson to militancy.

The men were set to work; they roughly roofed the cellars to make shelters for the women and children, and threw up hasty ramparts on the ruins of Fort George for themselves. Then the Niagara militia, a thousand raging men, came in, with their Indian allies after them. Murray, the colonel, had no artillery, and very little food, and if large supplies of food, blankets and other supplies were not procured soon, the victims of Newark must starve and freeze in their cellars.

"And the only place we can get supplies is from the enemy—across there." Ned was standing by the Niagara River as he spoke, to Tim.

"And a sweet little stream it certainly is," answered the Irishman.

It was night, and huge fires of logs blazed all along the American side, throwing a lurid glow across the dark rapid water, and the ghostly cakes of ice that whirled by. By the snow-covered banks the ice was continually forming, and being broken off as constantly by the swift flowing river.

"It sure will be lovely navigating to cross it," continued Tim, "and do you know what we shall be up against on the other side?"

"Two thousand men at Buffalo," Ned answered. "And four hundred at Fort Niagara, which has stone bastions, and the best guns on the river. A hundred men could easily hold it against a thousand."

For seven nights the log fires threw their search-lights across the river, and armed patrols watched, but they saw no movements on the Canadian side. On the eighth night, the river was dark. Leonard, commander of Fort Niagara, having ascertained the British had no artillery, and feeling sure they would not attempt to cross the dangerous river, drew in his pickets, for it was a bitter night.

On the Canadian side there was a quiet stir among the men waiting savagely by the ashes of Newark, a crouching lion.

The regiment marched silently out of the ruined town and up the river. Not a word was allowed to be spoken, and commands were passed down the ranks in whispers. Ferguson and Ned were together again as they entered the boats, which crept across the black river with muffled oars, the tense excitement of the men keeping them from feeling the cold. And distant and menacing sounded the deep thunder of Niagara.

They landed, unseen, at Youngstown, three miles above Fort Niagara. Here was the American hospital with its fill of wounded men. Noiselessly the buildings were surrounded, and a party entered, the sight of the hated redcoats telling the alarmed patients they were prisoners. Two brave men, convalescents, did not submit. Ready to die on the chance of being able to give the alarm, one sprang up the wide chimney, but was dragged back, promptly and roughly. The other leaped from a window, but was overtaken.

"We must go on, to get food and clothes for Newark," said Ferguson in a low earnest voice, "but, remember, men, for every deed we do to-night we must answer to God our Judge." He went on speaking quietly as boat after boat touched shore, and the men crowded near him, listening in respectful silence, till the word of command sent them moving silently along the road to Fort Niagara.

No one saw them, but a man had gone ahead of them—Sells, the deserter. He had been stealing cattle on the Canadian side, till the retreat, when he followed the Americans across the river. Now he came swiftly to the fort gate on his crunching snowshoes, urging the immediate lighting of the "search-lights" along the river. "I know the English way," he said to the sergeant-major, who came out between the massive walls to see what he had to say. "They'll fool 'round making mistakes, till the enemy do something like you did at Newark, then they'll get serious-mad. Nothing will stop them, and I shouldn't wonder if they're not crossing the river now."

"You're scared of them British; I'm not," said the American with an oath. "If they cross on a night like this it'll be because they can walk on the water."

Sells glided away, not many minutes before the forlorn hope—a hundred men with scaling ladders, crept round to the back of the fort where the grim eighteen pounders frowned. Percy led them, his colonel knowing that in spite of his affected indolence, his thoughtful kindness to his men made him a leader whom the warm hearted Irish would have followed to certain death.

With the thought of burnt Newark firing his blood and steeling his nerves, Ned followed Percy, climbing, scrambling, and slipping in the ghostly snow light, up the ladders and across icy, snow-laden roofs. The sentries were surprised at their posts, and captured or killed before they could give the alarm. And there was no stir in the main buildings of the fort, as the reckless assaulters dropped into the dark courtyard.

Leonard, the commander, had his quarters at the village, but most of the officers were in their mess-room playing whist. "What's trumps?" one asked.

The room door swung open—"British bayonets, I think, gentlemen," said Percy, quietly, and the startled men knew they were prisoners.

The main body, led by their colonel, and with Ferguson among them, had seized the outer works before the main gate, capturing the sentries, who gave them the password, which enabled them to reach the gate of the inner fort without their presence being known. The bitter cold of the night kept every one in their warm quarters, with every door and window closed.

The minutes seemed endless hours as they waited then, for the signal that would show their friends were within. Then a single shot rang out, followed by a scattering musket fire, and a tumult of noise—shouting men, English cheers, and the screams of the women in the married quarters, mingling with the sound of running feet.

Like hounds unleashed the waiting men went forward, carrying the gate with a rush—the leaders asking themselves if the little advance guard had been able to capture the yard batteries. If not, in a minute the deadly six pounders would open on the mass of the invaders penned within the high yard walls.

But with their officers prisoners, the bewildered Americans had only fired from their barrack windows at the redcoats running across the snowy yard. Many of them fell, but a dozen were beside the coveted guns, when the main force surged through the gate.

Ned, feeling strangely breathless and giddy with a bullet in his side, sat on the ground behind the guns, as his wildly cheering friends came in. They charged the barracks, where every window was ablaze with rifle fire. And from somewhere behind, a score of blue clad men dashed on the guns, fighting hand to hand with their defenders.

"Hold the guns," said the young English lieutenant.

"Hold the guns, for five minutes," cried Ned springing up, forgetting wounds. The pieces were covered with a tangle of fiercely fighting men, but they were not fired.

Ned remembered being struck down with a clubbed rifle, and with a last effort threw himself on the nearest gun, clinging desperately to its breech. There was a blank, then some one was trying gently to drag his arms apart. He resisted for the moment, and Tim's voice said coaxingly, "If you're not killed entirely, leave go to oblige me. I've got to carry you out of this, and it'll break my heart sure if you want me to take that gun you seem so attached to as well."

Ned relaxed limply, and was carried in to where the wounded of both armies lay, with Ferguson and a few helpers doing the little they could for them, as the surgeons had not yet come up. The fort was in quiet possession of the English. Only the women, to whom no one paid any attention, still screamed dismally—"The British and the Indians! They'll murder us! They'll scalp us all!"

A redcoated sentry stood by the gate, the color of his uniform not visible to the man who galloped up. Leonard had heard the few shots fired, and supposing there was a riot in the garrison rode up to see to it. Challenged by the sentry, he gave the countersign, and was instantly ordered to dismount.

"You thundering blockhead," cried the enraged American. "Can't you see I am the commanding officer?"

"Dismount, sir," repeated the man as he levelled his musket, "I am a British soldier."

The dumfounded officer obeyed, and was escorted to the slightly wounded English colonel, to whom he formally surrendered the fort.

"Sure, and this is the lucky day of my life," exclaimed Tim as he suddenly entered the hospital. "There'll be promotions for those who are looking for them, and plunder for the lot of us. For the love of Heaven somebody give me a sack. They've unlocked the stores, and we can plunder till daylight. There's food enough for twenty armies, and heaps of merchandise sorts of things, that'll sell for a lot in Upper Canada now—needles and pins and everything. It's too bad that even a heretic priest can't plunder."

Ferguson's helpers all followed Tim as he went off with his sack, and Ned roused himself from the dull aching stupor that wrapped his senses. "Don't stay here just for me," he said faintly to the Methodist, "This isn't like plundering private property."

"You heard what Tim said," smiled Ferguson, "I must live up to my priestly reputation, though I would like to take something, this time, for I am a poor man, yet it wouldn't do."

Morning came; the quartermaster took possession of all the stores that were not in the sacks of Tim and his comrades, and Dr. Tam was at his ghastly work of probing and operating—for this was before the mercy of chloroform. Ned, waiting his turn on the surgeon's terrible table, heard Ferguson saying to the colonel—"We need, sir, to show by our lives, our gratitude to God for the mercy of our victory last night; for it was a most foolhardy venture."

The officer looked at the fortifications, as he answered, "Yes, Ferguson, that's true. And I ought to be a better man than I am, I know; so thank you kindly for your advice."

Then the colonel entered the hospital to ask Dr. Tam's permission to speak to Ned before he passed under the surgeon's hands; and his words were a tonic that helped the young soldier through the ordeal of having his exhausted, fevered body probed for the ball in his side. He had won his commission, and when he left hospital it would be as an officer—an ensign.

Prisoners, plunder, wounded, and even the smaller guns, were all carried across the river that day, and the most daring and successful raid of the war was ended by serving out food and blankets to the people of Newark.

But as soon as Canadian Niagara knew of the capture of the fort, another raid had been made. The militia and Indians had crossed the river and flung themselves furiously on the enemy's countryside. Fortunately the people had all fled up to Buffalo, but Lewiston, Youngstown, and three other villages below the Falls were fired, and everything found was carried off. Very unwillingly the raiders obeyed Murray's signal for their recall to their own side of the river. He expected the force from Buffalo would be coming down to cut them off, but the Americans made no attempt to cross the river.

After nearly two weeks of delirium and fever, Ned awoke in a wonderfully comfortable bed, in Betty's house in Newark, which had been requisitioned as a hospital, and the first thing he saw was Ferguson being carried in, his drawn face showing that he was suffering greatly.

"It is an answer to prayer," said the Methodist faintly, "God is very good to me."

"Cook was carrying a kettle of boiling water across the yard, and slipped down, and threw it all on a sentry's feet, which sentry was Ferguson, sir," one of the bearers explained to Dr. Tam, as he dressed the badly scalded feet.

"It was a special providence," murmured Ferguson, "We had orders to go up the river, and crossing above the Falls, drive off the enemy's troops, which our scouts say, are badly disorganized and with no decent officers, and burn Black Rock and Buffalo. I had a struggle in my mind as to what I should do. It was not Christian to commit these greater enormities in retaliation for what we had suffered; so I cast my burden on the Lord, and He opened this way of escape."

Ned made no response, and the Methodist added—"Did you quit belonging to us, because you thought religion was too unfashionable to profess, when you were called an officer and a gentleman?"

"You had no right to say that to me," Ned cried, adding instantly, "No, no, but a man has wronged me, and I cannot forgive him, which you will not think Christian."

CHAPTER X

How Vere Came to Newark, and Bee
Consented to be Betrothed to Him.

It was the last day of 1813 when the raid that Ferguson had escaped joining was made, and Buffalo and Black Rock went up in flames. Fortunately the terrified inhabitants had fled, when their troops retreated—it is not very clear why—but everything they left was destroyed or carried off. And so 1813 ended, with black ashes strewn on either side of Niagara River, and a blacker hate in the hearts of Americans and Canadians alike.

Bee shivered, not with cold, but at the thought of the hate of war, as she left the house one brilliantly cold January day. She meant to take a long sledge drive by herself, and think things over. Like many others on both sides, the war hurt her cruelly, because in many ways it was so like a civil war. Yet after seeing the burning of Newark, she could not blame the savage retaliation from the Canadian side, and she could not hate Ned, or Betty and Sir John, with whom her brother had been quite willing to leave her—"But," she thought, "I cannot possibly be happy, or think of marrying a Canadian till this war is over, without anyone I love getting killed."

Then she saw Ned. He had left the house for the first time, to try a short walk, but he had over-rated his strength, and he was staggering, when a cutter drew up beside him, and he looked into Bee's bright face, as she said—"Oh, dear, how foolish men are. When you wanted to go out, why didn't you let someone know, and we would have taken you out. Get in here now."

"Just back to the house, please, Miss Bee," said Ned as he obeyed and sat down among the soft, thick furs. "Your guardians would not allow you to be with me a moment, if they knew what you do of me—what I told you at York—Miss Bee, what are you doing?"

For the wilful girl had let the spirited horse go, and they were flying out of ruined Newark, and away across the open country, where the keen air thrilled Ned like wine. Her horse kept Bee's hands full, but she looked round at Ned for a moment as she spoke, and he wondered that he had never noticed how bright and soft her eyes were. "Listen," she said, "of course I never repeated what you told me, but I know Cousin Betty suspects something—I thought you must have written and told her—and she doesn't mind at all. She said that women must always overlook a few things in a man, and I'm sure I can overlook you being accused of a crime you did not commit."

Ned gasped, realizing that there was a big misunderstanding somewhere—but he was so desperately lonely. Shut in with his secret, it was hard for him to refuse the sweet comradeship of this warm-hearted girl.

"Miss Bee," he began gravely, "you must have mistaken Mrs. Haslem. I believe Sir John will reach Newark to-day, and when he sees my name marked for honour, he may consent that I receive pardon for what I did not do; but I know I shall lose all other rewards; I shall doubtless be allowed to fight in the ranks till the end of the war, and afterwards I can find something to do. I know my father will never forgive me, and I will never go back to Dr. Brown with this stain on my name. You should not ride out with me like this."

Ned spoke with all the bitterness that had been fermenting in his brain so long, and with his hot hands clenched under the furs. Then a small hand, that was cool and very firm was suddenly laid on them, and its touch calmed Ned strangely—"You know very well that I will be your friend till death," said Bee Goode.

Behind them at Newark, Sir John and Vere had arrived, and the baronet sent Vere off to find Bee, while he talked over Ned's case with the Niagara officers.

Vere rode off, greatly disturbed to know that Ned had not deserted with Sells, and dropped forever out of his world. He hated him with all his weak, unwholesome nature, and then he saw him, in the sledge with the girl his grandfather had determined he should marry.

In a moment he was beside them, shouting with an oath—"I thought your dirty American blood would show some time, you minx! What spy work are you plotting with this deserter?"

Instantly Bee was on her feet, and with the strength of anger, struck him across the face with her whip—"Take that, you coward," she cried, "and never dare to speak to me again." Then turning her horse she drove home in a storm of jangling bells and flying hoofs.

She left Ned at the hospital door, and went to find Chloe waiting with her one silk dress—blue with a white flower pattern.

"Missy must dress up fine to-night," said the old nurse. "Mr. Vere is here, the gentleman who is to marry you, honey."

Bee thought Chloe was mad for a moment, but when the woman repeated what Betty had told her, she understood the mistake she had made at York.

"But I won't dress, I'll stay in my room, and lock the door while that cowardly liar is in the house," she cried. "And to-night we will run away, you and I to my brother."

"We can't, honey," said Chloe sympathetically. "There's miles of snow and burnt houses, and soldiers who would stop us, and that almighty wild river that nobody can't get over nohow. Let me dress you, honey, and make you look pretty, then you can go down and ask Mr. Percy to help you—he's here now."

Percy had not seen Bee since he left her, a slip of a girl, to go on to York, a year before, and for an instant he hardly recognized this silk-robed, pale-faced young woman, with her haughty poise, and flashing eyes. Then she was speaking to him, passionately and impulsively, repeating what Ned had told her at York, until he said, so sternly that she started at him—"That's enough, Bee, this is the first time you have shown yourself untrue to the Haslem name, let it be the last. Vere has his faults, but no man of our family could be a coward or lie."

"My name is Goode, sir," said Bee, at white heat now, "and I am sorry that I am half a Haslem if their family pride makes them blind to the vices of a relative. Sir, I demand that you send me across to my brother—to my father's people."

"Bee!" exclaimed Betty aghast, but Percy, after a keen look at the girl, said slowly and sternly—"I have just come from considering Ned Edgar's case. If he admits to having been afraid to deliver the note at York, we can pardon his panic—seeing what his record has been since—on his first day under fire, unless he persists in this attempt to smirch the name of another man."

Bee read a threat to Ned in the emphasis Percy put on his last words, and she forgot herself, thinking of Ned's possible danger. Then in came Sir John, furious, for Vere had given him his version of the red welt on his face, but the angry words on the old man's lips were checked as he saw the child he had left at York shot up into young womanhood—"Bless me," he exclaimed, "I didn't know you."

She made a mocking little courtesy to him. "My cousin did not know me either, it would seem, sir. I met a sick soldier and was driving him home, when Vere met us and spoke insultingly to me; I hope sir, you will say I did right to strike him."

"Bless me," Sir John repeated helplessly. "I don't know what the world is coming to."

He was relieved at hearing the summons to dinner then, the dinner which was to publicly announce the betrothal of Vere and Bee. Such family arrangements for the marriage of young people who hardly knew one another were not uncommon then, and the guests did not pay particular attention to the sulky boy, who felt that he hated this "Yankee girl," as he called her in his heart, who had so openly shown that she was on his enemy's side. And the girl herself, who in white-faced silence heard her grandfather's speech, felt trapped, believing that if she resisted it meant further injustice and suffering for Ned.

The evening was almost over when Archy got Bee away by herself. "I thought you would like to know about Ned," he said bluntly. "He just wouldn't say anything, only that him or Vere Haslem was a blamed liar, and we could decide which it was."

"What are you going to do with him?"

"Because of what he did here, he will be pardoned for what he did, or didn't, at York."

"Then you don't think he is guilty?"

"Not so fast, young lady. I don't know, and the only way to find out, is to wait and watch them both. The liar will act the coward and lie again, sure."

"You may have to wait a long time for that; and while you are watching both, you treat Vere Haslem as if he were innocent, and Ned as if he were guilty. You are cruelly hard on him."

"There's a heap of hard things in life; one of them is that the day we clear Ned, we break Sir John's heart."

* * *

And Bee, who remembered that she loved her grandfather, shivered.

She had not expected to sleep that night, but health and youth asserted themselves and she rested well, and woke in the sunny morning feeling that somehow things could not be as bad as she had thought them in the night. She was greatly helped to this comparative cheerfulness by a talk she heard under her window, where Ferguson was energetically telling Kawque, the Mohawk scout, the story of Ned and Vere. The Indian grunted such emphatic assent to Ferguson's belief in his friend, that Bee was half comforted. At least Ned had true friends.

Ferguson's friendship was doubly warm now that he knew the reason for Ned's "backsliding", and it helped the boy through the ordeal of returning to his comrades, reduced in rank.

Ferguson had ridden home with Percy that evening, and the men had scattered to their messes, busy getting supper and preparing for the night. Each mess consisted of about a dozen men who divided the work among them, the non-commissioned officers always being exempt. Ned, to whom no one had yet spoken, picked up a pail to fetch water, washing to take his part in the work before he was ordered to by the sergeant. But Tim snatched the pail from him.

"Me Swaddler friend," he said earnestly, "unless you are wishful to go back to hospital immediate, you won't try to work round this mess."

Perplexed, Ned looked at his sergeant, but that man only said, "Better put off arguing with Tim for a few years, Ned, you haven't the weight to stand up to him yet."

So Ned knew he had been tried and acquitted by a very powerful court—the opinion of the men among whom he lived. After hearing of Ned's condemnation at Kingston the regiment had talked of nothing else for a week. They had also compared notes with a company just arrived, and decided which man had lied. Now with rough delicacy they let Ned know what their verdict had been, and that they knew his reduction was only temporary.

* * *

Betty had moved to St. Davids, a village by Queenston Heights, where Percy and Sir John came often, and Vere seldom. He managed to find duties, any duties, to keep him from meeting the fiancée he now detested. And still Sir John delighted in Bee's brightness, and believed that in practically forcing her to marry Vere he was doing the best for the girl he really loved, and for the family whose honour was rooted in his heart.

Spring came, and there was some skirmishing on Lake Ontario. Erie was entirely in American hands. But on land there were only a few raids by the Americans, who had a new general, Winfield Scott, who was carefully training the army with which he meant to take Upper Canada that summer. If he did not, he well knew Canada would not be taken at all, for England was making peace with France. Earnestly Canadians were praying that peace might be made with the United States also, though they were as ready as ever to fight if the American flag should again be carried across their border by armed men.

A breathless June evening Bee stood alone in Betty's garden, thinking that July was very near, and feeling desperately afraid. Betty had spoken to her very decidedly—"Of course you will marry Vere in three weeks." To herself she said, "The boy is steady enough now, and this wretched business of Ned Edgar's refusing to take back his shameful lie that Vere never gave him the letter, makes it all the more necessary that we should stand by him."

Alone in the hot June dusk Bee shivered. She was too young and too affectionate to be able to defy Sir John and Betty, and as she helplessly prayed for some one who could advise her, a man who walked noiselessly as an Indian, came beside her, and she held out her hands to him with a little cry of joy. "Papa Edgar; you have escaped! But you are so thin!"

"Prisons aren't palaces," said Edgar indifferently, "In the winter there was no fire and in the summer no air, below decks, where we were. We lay on the bare planking. But down in Montreal harbour, our prisoners were on similar other prison hulks so I had nothing to complain of—it was the fortune of war. At last Tahata came one night and helped me to escape."

Edgar bore his enemies no grudge for his rough prison—he lived in a rough age—it was really the memory of Ned that had aged him, and he tried fiercely to stop Bee when she mentioned his name. He still thought him with Sells the deserter. But the girl insisted on telling him all, and the light of her faith in his son kindled hope in his heart again. Ned might be, nay, must be, soon proved innocent. Then another thought made him exclaim, "But you must not marry this villain, child."

"You will help me not to, sir," said Bee confidently as she clung to him, and Edgar frowned to himself. He was on duty, scouting with his Indians, and he had snatched only a moment to speak to his one-time ward. He knew he was helpless to aid her; he could not possibly take her from the Haslems. Then among the bushes he saw the dark face of Kawque the scout.

Kawque was to stay at St. Davids, and used to quick thinking and daring action, Edgar spoke reassuring farewell as on sudden impulse he went to the Indian.

The first thing he had meant to tell the Mohawk was unnecessary. Kawque was quite sure already of Ned's innocence, and Edgar looked visibly younger as he heard what Kawque could tell him—"Blessings on that Methodist after all," he thought, then spoke earnestly to the Indian about Bee. Kawque nodded; he never wasted words.

"Bee Goode not marry till you say so, all right," he said decidedly.

And so Edgar went off, not stopping to think that the methods of an Iroquois warrior in preventing a formally arranged aristocratic wedding might prove startling.

CHAPTER XI.

Kawque Takes a Hand in the Game.

It was the morning of Sunday, July 3, 1814; Ferguson was preaching in Warner's Chapel (the third Methodist church erected in Upper Canada), at St. Davids, when, like a hideous spectre of advancing war, Kawque stood in the doorway, half-naked, and frightful in his war-paint.

"The Longknives have crossed the river," he cried, for his hard black eyes picked Percy out among the congregation. Gliding toward him, he gave him the note calling him to a council of war. All the congregation were running out, the women to bury silver, and the men to prepare their arms in readiness for the summons which would soon call them out.

Percy said a few words to his wife, then rode off, to look round as Ferguson trotted his mount after him—"You have not been sent for yet, Ferguson," said Percy, "and I wonder your religion lets you travel on Sunday when you are not compelled to."

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, sir."

"Oh, certainly have it your own way, but now I want you to take my keys. We are going to have the most desperate fighting of this war, and I have made you my executor in my will. You can see that my trunk, now at Fort George, goes to Mrs. Haslem, some plate and a considerable sum in gold are in it."

That Sunday morning seven thousand Americans entered the Niagara peninsula, and supported by the gun boats of Lake Erie, took Fort Erie. Their plans were to surround and capture the army of the defence—instead of chasing it into the bush—also taking Fort George. Then with the co-operation of the Lake Ontario fleet they meant to seize and fortify Burlington Heights. The plan was a good one, but to keep it from being carried out, were fourteen hundred regulars, sixteen hundred militia, and three hundred Indians, stationed in Niagara itself. Behind them, Burlington and York had been stripped of men to make their numbers what they were. Behind them too, round Burlington and York were the ripening wheat fields, that must be saved unless Upper Canada was to be starved into surrender the next winter. Kingston had sent her fleet to blockade Sackett's Harbour, and was herself blockaded by the American gun boats of Lake Ontario. In Lower Canada the enemy had massed a huge army at Lake Champlain, and every available man and gun on the Canadian side had been called out to guard the roads to Montreal.

On Monday evening, July fourth, Ned stood, once more a sentry, by Chippewa Creek, the little river that enters the Niagara a few miles above the Falls. Two miles away was the enemy's camp, strongly entrenched with a breastwork of logs. The British position was also good, among sheltering trees, with the rapid stream in front, crossed by only one bridge. Both leaders were hoping the other would attack.

It grew dark, and Ned, straining his ears to catch the sounds ahead, felt depressed. He did not like the stories he had heard of the new Commander, the haughty Marquis of Tweedsdale, and the memory of all that he had been robbed of, came to him, hurting him fiercely.

Then a dark, silent figure rose before him, and he challenged sharply. It was Kawque, the scout, and as he had not the password Ned called for an escort to take him in.

There was a noise of trampling horses, as Riall and Tweedsdale with their staff rode by. They stopped when the scout was brought to them, and Ned heard Kawque's laconic report—"Long Knives too strong. Twice too many for you to attack. Got thirty-six cannon."

The two leaders spoke together, Riall apparently urging something on his companion to which Tweedsdale answered in his loud harsh voice—"Nonsense, these Yankees are a pack of untrained cowards. Are we to sulk here for fear of a mob of scape-gallows and prison men? They will never stand against a bayonet charge."

"That means we'll go out and attack, only cowards would want to wait here for them," Ned heard Vere's voice say gleefully, as the leaders rode on. Ned's face darkened as his enemy passed, riding as if in triumph over him, and something more like a curse than a prayer rose to his lips.

"Why not shoot him?" Kawque whispered softly in the young sentry's ear, "You hate, eh? for he took these"—he touched Ned's sleeve where the sergeant's stripes had been—"they were to you as the scalps you had taken with your hand from the enemy."

"Shooting's too good for the cur," said Ned fiercely, adding, angry with himself, "Get out of here, Kawque, you've no business hanging 'round talking to me."

Kawque went off, thinking, "Shooting's too good, eh? he means he wants to kill slowly."

Alone again, Ned repeated his fierce prayer for vindication.

In the morning of July fifth, the English drums beat to arms, and soon after, twelve hundred regulars in three solid columns, with Tweedsdale leading, crossed the Chippewa, strict orders being given that the men must reserve their fire until command.

There was, however, a sharp rattle of musketry fire from both sides. The Canadian militia were crouching behind stumps, and crawling through the long grass in front of the English position, and as the columns moved forward, Ned marching by Ferguson, recognized Archy directing the movements of his men. Though Ned did not know it, Edgar had also reached the camp the night before, and was now behind with the Indians. The demands of war had not allowed him to seek his son.

Suddenly Ferguson looked up, shouting joyously—"Glory to God, I am saved."

Percy, walking a little in advance, looked back, and smiled. "What's the matter now, Ferguson?"

"Glory to God," repeated the lively Methodist, "my soul is so happy."

"I suppose that means that you know you will be killed to-day and so reach Heaven?"

"No, sir, I won't fall to-day, but I am assured I shall be wounded."

"Oh, you have it all arranged, I see. I hope it wasn't against your conscience to ask that you might get a light one."

Archy kneeling by a log, looked up as they passed. "Guess that's why you fellows don't think you need be afraid of anything," he shouted, "seeing you've got a real live Methodist preacher in your ranks."

The three little columns were out in the open now, their close formation, and the bright scarlet of their uniforms, making it almost impossible for the enemy's marksmen to miss a shot. They had broken into a run, with their bayonets flashing, when the Americans, loading with buckshot and cartridges, swept their front ranks with a death blast of fire.

Ned saw Percy stagger, and Ferguson spring to his side. For a moment Percy leaned heavily on the soldier, then steadied himself, changing his sword to his left hand, as he called to his men. None faltered; they halted at the word of command, to fire, then dashed on again, till only a hundred yards from the enemy, who were holding their fire—till then.

Then again death flashed from the unseen rifles, and now the invader's cannon spoke also, belching forth death. When the smoke cleared the brave scarlet lines were gone, only scattered groups were on the field, but not till the bugles behind them called "retreat", did they turn to go back, and they carried most of their wounded with them.

Amid the terrible fire that stopped them, Ned saw Ferguson's musket fall from his hand, and his friend's right arm hang useless. Still the Methodist kept his place till they all turned. He was nearly fainting from loss of blood when they re-crossed the Chippewa, and Ned was able to bandage his arm roughly with a silk handkerchief. The bone was not broken, but badly grazed by a ball that had passed through it just below the elbow, and it held possibilities of danger if not dressed properly by a surgeon. But no surgeon had come with the army, which was now in all the confusion of breaking camp. Tweedsdale's reckless, foolish charge had cost five hundred out of the twelve who made it, and Riall was afraid of the Americans attacking his sorely diminished force. They did not, however, for they had no idea of the smallness of his numbers, nor the extent of his loss. The British were now in hurried retreat, to the heights of Queenston, dragging their cannon, and with their wounded in wagons. It was an excessively hot day. In the excitement of the fighting, and the hurry of starting off, no one had time to think of thirst, but now as they marched along, within sight and sound of an inland ocean of fresh water roaring through the upper rapids, they, and especially the wounded, suffered frightfully for water. And because just above the rapids the enemy's gun boats were watching, the men were ordered not to leave their ranks in the shelter of the woods.

"A curse on their orders," gasped a soldier by Ned, whose face was as red as his coat. "I'm a going to have a drink if I die for it."

He made a dash for the river, a stone's throw. An officer called to him angrily to come back instantly, but crazed with thirst, he only yelled out an oath, knelt down to drink at the water's edge—and the next moment was downed by an American bullet. No one else tried to reach the river, though they stared at the water with tortured eyes, as they trudged along in the heat.

Many of the wounded were raving in delirium. Ferguson, too weak to walk, was suffering torments jolted along in the rough wagon. "Water," he panted at last, half unconscious, "A mouthful of water!"

Percy, whose injured shoulder did not prevent him from riding on his horse, came to the side of the wagon, as he heard him. "Take a little rum from my flask," he urged, offering it, and the Methodist took it—the only time in his military life when he tasted liquor.

At midnight the sullen army reached St. Davids. Percy took the exhausted Ferguson to his wife, to stay, while he rode on to the hospital at Fort George. The army passed St. Davids, and entrenched itself at Queenston, where it waited, on very short rations, and wondering why the enemy did not come on.

But the Americans did not wish to leave the support of the Lake Erie gun boats until they were sure their Ontario fleet were in Niagara River. Ned was at Queenston, while Edgar was still with the Indians, who were acting as pickets in the woods near the Falls.

Two days after the battle, Vere rode to St. Davids, and as he spoke to Betty, Indian scouts ran through the village, calling that the Americans were coming, destroying the country as they came. Cattle and poultry were killed and burnt, fields and gardens trampled down. Only dwelling houses with women and children in them were untouched.

Ferguson was in no condition to travel, but as to stay meant the prison-hulks at Sackett's Harbour, he went off through the woods, guided by Kawque. Vere had his horse, but leaving it with Chloe for a minute he ran up to the room the Fergusons used. From its window he saw an American patrol riding in, and picking up a rifle he fired at them, emptying a saddle. Then leaping downstairs, he mounted and tore down the road.

Ten minutes later, the house was surrounded, and its occupants questioned by an angry American officer. "I can see there have been men in this house," he said to Betty. "Now unless you will tell me which roads they took through the woods, I shall hold you guilty of firing on my men."

"You must know," Betty answered calmly, "that as a loyal Englishwoman I cannot give you any correct information, and as a Christian I cannot tell you anything false."

To the credit of their blood, there is no instance of women being mishandled by the men of either side during the war in Canada, and the officer answered shortly, "In five minutes, if you do not speak I shall fire your house."

"It is only what I must expect," said Betty, "but I pray you, sir, watch that the fire does not spread. Everything is so hot and dry."

With nothing saved but the clothes they had on, Bee and Chloe with Betty and Mrs. Ferguson, who both held their children, stood on the road, not knowing which way to go, for the fire did spread, and every house in pretty St. Davids went down.

Meanwhile of the two men who left St. Davids, Ferguson had been taken by Kawque safely to the Queenston lines, and Ned drove him to Fort George. Evidently a bit of lead was still in his arm, for it was terribly swollen and painful, and almost black. Ned had to go back at once, so he left Ferguson at the hospital—a horror of war.

"You inexpressible idiot," roared the doctor. "Why didn't you ask for me at once? Thought others were worse than you, eh? Well if you had not always lived as you have, this arm would have to come off at once, but now there's a chance."

Meanwhile as Ferguson lay on his fevered bed, and the men at Queenston saw the smoke of St. Davids go up, Kawque going towards the Americans to scout, came across a trail which showed him that Vere in his hasty flight from St. Davids, had taken a wrong turning and gone into the deep bush. A moment Kawque thought, then went swiftly after Ned's enemy, until a mêleé of horse and foot marks, and broken underbrush told him a struggle had taken place in the woods. Vere had been captured, so much Kawque guessed, but his captors were not any Indians, the Mohawk knew, and yet he was sure the Americans had not advanced that far.

Silently now as a snake, Kawque glided through the underbrush until he came to a hut, where men whom he recognized as Sell's gang, deserters from both armies, were standing round Vere, who with his hands tied behind him, was foaming with rage.

Then a man in a ragged red coat—Sells himself—stepped forward, and laughed in his face—"I too was a gentleman once, until your damned grandfather had me flogged, at Kingston; I'd kill you now in revenge, only the Yankees are hotfoot after us—we did a bit of plundering among the Canucks—and the last man of us will be hanged if we can't give them the slip. See here, the Yankee leader is Eli Goode; we know his sister's at St. Davids, with a nigger woman, and two of us are going there disguised as Indians to get her, and then I guess her brother will sing another tune. It's up to you to tell us where she is."

Vere had plenty of animal courage in the excitement of battle, but when he saw the preparations for his torture by the miscreants, his soul was afraid, yet he had enough English instinct to answer Sells bravely, with a curse, though the degenerate within him whispered, "Why suffer for a Yankee girl?"

CHAPTER XII.

How Bee was Abducted—and the End.

A tornado of flame was sweeping over St. Davids, and women with their children stumbled through the burning, choking fog of smoke. Betty's little household were still standing helplessly together by the ruins of their cottage, when two men, in the war-paint of the Mohawks, leaped out of the smoke, seized Bee, and vanished with her in the fog. Chloe rushed after them screaming, while the other two women, cumbered with the babies they carried, could do nothing.

Then more men, in Indian dress and paint, were round them, roughly demanding their names. They were gone too, in the smoke and confusion, as some Americans rode up, and Betty implored them to rescue Bee.

"Madam," said their officer coldly, "our Indians are still the other side of the river. The Mohawk devils are in your pay, not ours. You had better look among the British lines for the girl."

For endless miles now, it seemed, Betty and Mrs. Ferguson tramped the hot roads, with the other refugees of St. Davids. At last they reached Queenston, and Percy. He himself had been about to set out for St. Davids with Dr. Tam, a wagon, and two men—Ned and Tim Kelly. The Americans had told them to send, under a flag of truce, and fetch the sick and injured from the burnt village.

So they rode off, Ned stunned to think that Bee was abducted, and probably by men worse than any savages—Sells' gang of deserters. They heard nothing of Bee at St. Davids, though some of Sells' men had been seen near disguised as Indians, and an American company, with Eli Goode in command, was out searching for them.

They were returning when Kawque met them; he first whispered to Ned—"Come and mock your enemy. He is a prisoner in the woods, and you can taunt him, telling him he can never ride with the British soldiers again, for he whined when he thought Sells would torture him, and he told where Bee Goode was, that they might steal her."

With his black eyes glittering, the Mohawk repeated his story to Percy, and without a word the four men left the wagon, and followed the Indian to the hut. It was empty except for a man who lay bound face down on a bench, the upper part of his body covered with a blanket. He did not seem conscious, but groaned deeply as Tim cut the ropes, and brought water. Ned did nothing but look with loathing upon his enemy's disgrace.

Percy took hold of the blanket to lift it, but Vere, speaking for the first time, though he kept his face hidden, cried, "Don't touch it. Don't touch me. I can't bear it."

"Dr. Tam is just behind us," said Percy. Then signing the others to go out, he added fiercely, "and you betrayed Bee, to save your skin?"

Vere cringed at the savagery in his tone. "They burnt me for hours," he whispered faintly. "At last I did not know what I said."

Percy moved back quickly to keep himself from striking a wounded man, then as Dr. Tam came in, he went out. Ned was waiting to speak to him. "We are wasting time, sir," he said crisply, "Kawque says he can follow Sells' trail, but he is afraid of being killed by the American soldiers if he goes alone and they capture him. Will you let me go with him? We can leave plenty of marks for Captain Goode to follow, and as she was only stolen this morning we might even be able to rescue her, before she is harmed."

"Go certainly," said Percy in an unsteady voice, for his soul was sick at the thought of Vere's cowardice.

With a gesture of farewell Ned turned from him, and followed Kawque into the bush. Knowing that the only way to keep himself quiet and sane was to work hard, he set the pace through the brush at a rate that made Kawque look at him admiringly. The Mohawk was a primitive man, he understood strength, but not weakness.

Dr. Tam came out, and Percy asked—"Are his injuries likely to be fatal, doctor?"

Dr. Tam smiled grimly. "When I was a lad at college, Major Haslem, we had an awful way of initiating freshmen. We ought to have been expelled for it. We stripped the victim to his waist, and tied him, while we heated irons red-hot before his eyes, and told him we were going to do some fancy marking on his back with them. Then we blindfolded him, and brought out some raw meat and sealing wax. We dug the iron into the meat holding it at his back, for him to smell, and hear too, the flesh scorching under them, while we touched his skin with the hot wax—and I've known strong lads to faint away. Suggestion, just suggestion."

"Doctor," cried Percy, irritably, "what are you telling me this for?"

"Because Sells must have learnt some college hazing tricks. That's what he did to our man in there. Vere Haslem has a couple of skin burns that usually he wouldn't have sworn at for more than a minute. I kicked him, and told him to get up and put on his clothes."

Vere was on his feet, dressed, and just fastening on his sword when Percy came in. "Give that to me," the older man said.

"When it is known you were not captured by the enemy," he continued, "you will be marked 'missing', and inquiries will be made. You must stop here, and I will bring you plain clothes and money. Then you can cross the river, and get to France as soon as you can. You must take another name there, and I will see you are provided with funds. Kawque and Dr. Tam will tell all that happened here, and I will ask that the Court which condemned Ned Edgar at Kingston re-open the case, and consider what your word as a witness is worth."

So the cup Vere had filled once for another, came back to him. Leaning against the side of the hut he saw the world of military trappings and music that his soul loved, slip away from him forever.

* * *

That evening, Edgar with Tahata, the Mohawk chief, and a dozen Indians, went recklessly out to seek for his son, and his one-time ward, Bee Goode. At midnight they were challenged by an American picket, and Edgar went forward with a white handkerchief tied on his sword. "I am looking for a girl whom Sells' gang has stolen," he said. "If you will let us pass, I give you my word, to return and surrender as your prisoner, as soon as I have found her—Bee Goode."

"Major Edgar," said Eli's voice in the darkness, "I think we can both forget the war for a little while—till we find Bee Goode. I shall be very glad of your help, and we can go on together."

For a week they pressed after the gang, wondering that they never saw a trace of the marks Ned and Kawque were to leave for them to follow. Edgar and Eli were afraid to put what they feared into words, but Tahata said bluntly—"We are on the Sells' gang trail, getting near him, yes; but Kawque never passed here; maybe him and Ned find Sells' camp first night, and creep in to get the girl, and—", Tahata finished his sentence with a significant gesture of his tomahawk. Edgar thought he would never see his son again, and an agony of remorse and sorrow swept over him.

* * *

It was a hot, dark night in the vast unexplored forest that covered all the country back of the lake fronts. The allies, united to save Bee, Canadian, American, and Mohawk, were camped round their fire, and their chiefs, Edgar, Eli, and Tahata, sat apart in council. Said Edgar—"We have found the man's stronghold, and he knows we are here, yet he does not send any word—evidently he does not hold Bee."

"In other words," said Eli hoarsely, "she is dead in his hands before this, either by the mercy of God, or the—the handling of men."

"We live, we are men, we can attack and do justice upon him," said Tahata the Mohawk, sententiously.

Then on the other side of the fire they saw her—or her spirit. In the beaded buckskin bravery of an Indian belle, with white feathers in her hair, she smiled at them, still the light-hearted girl who had never received anything but knightly treatment from any man. And behind her in the shadows they saw the faces of Ned, Chloe, and Kawque.

"Papa Edgar, and Brother Eli, don't you know me?" she cried; and coming round the fire, she touched them with warm human hands, talking quickly as she told how after hearing Vere betray her, Kawque with a friend had rushed off to St. Davids. The place was on fire, Sells was close behind and the Americans coming. Kawque had no time to explain, he snatched the girl away, telling her who he was as Chloe caught up to them. Then because they were cut off from getting to the English lines, the other Indian took Bee to the Mohawk village deep in the forest, leaving Kawque to tell Bee's friends; but wishing the unhappy Vere to bear the full weight of Percy's anger, the scout said nothing of Bee till he was alone in the bush with Ned. Then they had gone to fetch the girl, and brought her after her brother's party.

In silent thanksgiving Eli kissed his sister, and Edgar looked at Ned, standing up very straight in the fire-glow—"Will you—can you, shake hands?" he said huskily, holding out his own.

Ned clasped it instantly, knowing that his honour among men was restored.

Leaving Bee and Chloe carefully hidden, the men then went on to attack, capture—and dispose of Sells' gang, with the rough justice of the wild.

It was Sir John of whom Bee was thinking when Eli came to tell her that he was about to start for the American lines. Would she come with him, or stay, to be a Canadian, among Canadians?

"Must you go," she said brokenly, "to fight Ned—and Papa Edgar?" There was white pain in her face, for like many another woman on the Canadian-American border, her heart was torn by the horror of this almost civil war. She clung to him pathetically, as though afraid to let him go.

"I must go to my grandfather," she half whispered. "I know no one can comfort him now, still he did love me, and I must go to him."

"Take care of her," said Eli briefly, as he left, and he looked at Ned, not Edgar.

For a week Bee and her friends travelled through the thick bush, and then on Sunday, July twenty-fourth, they rested, hearing far-off the thunder of Niagara. It was here that to the keen hearing of the Indians came the sound of church bells ringing a frantic alarm, and hastily they broke camp, to push on, guessing their meaning—a fresh advance of the invader.

And away in Niagara Sir John was still in ignorance of his shame, although it was three weeks since Vere had disappeared. Believing him to be a prisoner and comparatively safe, his whole anxiety was for his little grand-daughter.

That torridly hot Monday afternoon, July twenty-fifth, Sir John sat on his horse, stiffly correct, in a little graveyard near the Falls. Behind was a gray church, and all round the cemetery ran a stone wall where berry bushes grew thick. In front, the ground sloped down to a road—Lundy's Lane—with thick orchards of apple and peach on either side.

The previous Sunday had been one of alarm in Niagara. A week before the enemy had fallen back on Chippewa, and the British had followed as far as the Falls. Then Winfield Scott managed to deceive them so completely as to his intentions, that Riall sent twelve hundred men under Drummond to Fort George. Only sixteen hundred were still with him at Lundy's Lane; Sir John was watching as his little battery clattered in among the gravestones, and the guns took position where they could sweep the road.

Then in came Fitzgibbons' men with their famous bush-fighting leader, and news—five thousand Americans were marching from Chippewa. Riall ordered a retreat to Queenston, and half his force had started when the enemy came down Lundy's Lane. It was an unpremeditated battle on both sides. The British were trying to get away, and the enemy thought they were at Queenston. Scott, however, attacked instantly, afraid they might escape into the bush, hurling his men up the hill to where the battle flag of England waved over the church, and the guns vomited death above the graves of the quiet dead.

For half an hour the battery had the battle to itself. The blue-coated men dashed forward, crouching behind the cemetery wall to fire a volley through the bushes, then springing across, rushed on the gunners. Now the rest of the army were back in position, and the battle raged. Men fired at men a stone's throw off their musket muzzles, or fought savagely hand to hand with clubbed guns and the deadly bayonet.

Sir John was wounded. Half-stunned, he was pulled from under his dead horse, and saw Percy. "How goes it?" he murmured with faint eagerness.

"Drummond is back with his twelve hundred, sir. Marched to Fort George and back without stopping; did the last mile on a run too, in this heat. The enemy has brought his guns into action, you can hear them. Our left is smashed up, and General Riall is captured. But I guess we can stick it out. Can I do anything for you? We have no water."

"No, I can hear it all going over the Falls," said Sir John, wandering a little. "I would like to know that Bee was safe."

Percy left him in the church and went out. There was a lull in the fighting. It was now nine o'clock at night, and the battle had lasted since six. The moon had risen, throwing a pale light on the dead and wounded heaped among the graves and down the hill, and all along the road between the orchards. The heat was terrific, no coolness having come with the night, and neither army had a drop of water. The fighting men, many of whom had been marching all day, suffered intolerably with thirst, and the wounded, torn with the frightful bayonet and scorching in an inferno of heat and pain, soon grew delirious.