Adventure Magazine Cover — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

aa as “ae a re ee the Nhe fh os ~~ ~The Bushfighters General Lyman grew apopletic of counte- and fury!” he gasped. “Jan the Rogue’s. wench! And slipped right through my hands! And goes to report her discoveries at Ticonderoga! By Heavens, she shall be overhauled! Tl give orders to my men! ——! I forgot. My men are no good in the woods. Putnam, you must——” “Just a word, general,” begged Putnam. nance. 's 3 “Tt is best she goes through. She knows noth- | ing of our orders to hold back an advance on Ticonderoga. She will tell Montcalm or Levis that we plan to attack in force. The news will halt the French till we can get our feet braced. “Ts best: she be eight Better she be hung than that she reach ‘Ticonderoga,’ roared Lyman. “She talked but little with me, but taking her for your man I told my officers there would be no move against Ticon- deroga, and she heard me. And the ’s to pay if she gets through with ‘hat budget.” “That’s a hoss of different color,” slowly admitted Putnam. ‘“‘No; she mustn’t get ‘through. She can’t be far ahead. She doesn’t know she’s chased. She'll keep to the bush and move slowly to dodge the troops. Willis and I will cut her off.”’ It was not until they were back in the Lake - George road that Willis found his voice. _ “Think of it! She passed herself off as me,” were his first words. “And keen enough not to go to Lyman till candle-light,” sighed Putnam. “You know the country from here to Fort William Henry?” ‘Edward and send a messenger to me. “As well as the road by my father’s farm.” “Then take to the bush on the west side of it and I’ll scout to the east. We'll meet be- fore sundown at old Fort Anne at the tail. of Shone Creek. If you find her, take her to Fort Tell General Lyman I ordered you to take her back to Albany. And if you love her don’t let her slip through your fingers.” “She must be found, but I hope it’s you who finds her,” said Willis as he slipped into the forest. \y} BOTH-were moving parallel to the } road chopped out the year before by Johnson’s axmen; and although many heavy wagons, many troops and the ordnance had passed over it the stumps of trees remained. It was only a-raw gash through the primeval woods. - Putnam first traveled it as a private, and had seen the genial Johnson leisurely paus- ing to drink his “fresh lemon punch” and wine, supplemented by “broken bread and cheese.” Seth Pomeroy, a gunsmith of Northampton, had been his companion during that trying campaign, also John Stark, who was-to make _ the name of Bennington one to be remembered. $5 tf es® = Ct tg ONES oo St Gat ie Among the officers had been Ephraim Williams, | a Massachusetts colonel, who had felt a pre- monition of evil while in Albany and who had drawn the will which laid the foundation of Williams College. And the rustics of 1755 were now veterans. - Pomeroy, Stark and many others of their kind were serving, like Putnam, in Major Robert Rogers’ independent command of rangers. As Putnam scouted the thick fotest, ever casting about for some trace of the girl, he | wished the country were more open, such as the West was said to be. Then there would be no ghastly tragedies of troops lost and be- wildered in the somber woods, but a rattling, smashing campaign in God’s sunlight, a mode. of attack the Indians were chary to resist. The Canadians and Indians were of scant value in the open, just as the regulars and pro- vincials got in each, other’s way and allowed themselves to be massacred like so many sheep once the interlacing boughs shut,out the light of the high heavens. Sagacious in thought as he was reckless and daring in warfare, the Connecticut captain realized that the great danger from the fall of Oswego was not so much the loss of the fort itself as its effect upon the Long House. Sir William Johnson was working night and day to ~ hold the Iroquois neutral where they refused to fight for the English. The French must be whipped if the Iroquois were to continue at peace with the English. He was measurably sure of - his Mohawks, who guarded the eastern door, but the keepers of the western door, the Senecas, were inde- pendent and irritable under any dictation. Whoever won this -war won the Iroquois. The nation that had the Long House behind it could dominate the continent. For many, many years the Iroquois con- trolled the region from Albany to Lake Erie. Without the consent of the Five Nations travel on the upper Hudson, the Mohawk, the Delaware and upper Susquehanna was at the risk of life. The governors of Maryland and Pennsylvania, as‘ well as of Virginia and New York, journeyed through the wilderness to treat with the Long House when lesser nations would have been commanded to come to them. One hundred and forty-six years before Israel Putnam enlisted in this war, one Samuel Champlain had highly delighted his. wild Huron companions, and probably satisfied his own sporting propensity, by trying his firearms on a band of Iroquois, killing six. This was the first introduction of the Long House to the “bang-sticks,’” and they never forgave the French for taking this advantage of them. Their resentment became a racial memory. In the ordinary course of events they would have turned to the French rather than _to the English. The French were never brusk (eo) 0)(0\6) mile Sy (E(0) Sy. wit ; Be yA | d ? i + ¥ | VY J ene re a vee aS