Adventure Magazine Cover — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

30 Anxiety died under such reassurance. The honesty and simplicity of the men were too evident for even Stewart’s customary, protective suspicion to stand before them, while the ingenious use of the suspected leader’s particular talents, for the benefit of the Line, indicated that they might well hope to wriggle out of any trouble into which he might try to wile them. Butler looked suddenly relieved, Stewart pinched his lips together firmly, and Wayne chuckled outright. ‘Now, how are you off for rations?” the last inquired genially. “Pretty short,’ admitted Dockstader, who had been promoted from commissary sergeant of Company B to the same office for the whole Line. ‘We filled up the knapsacks with powder and ball, ’stead of biscuit, when we assembled on New Year’s night, and now there’s just enough bread to last one more day afore we start to forage.”’ Wayne frowned. “There must be none of that,” he said quickly. “If it once starts, the Line will melt like snow under a south wind in March. They’ll go foraging off here, and foraging off there, but they won’t come back again. And that is the one thing that must not happen. I’ll send ye over a couple of bul- lock-loads from camp, and that’ll keep ye going till after you’ve heard from Congress. And—but this need not be mentioned to Fallen, although all the Line should know that they’ve started—I’ll call off the Con- necticuts, too, if you will assure me of one thing.” He paused expectantly. ‘“‘And that there is—?”’ said Maine, with caution. “That you’ll have the Line across the Delaware by tomorrow night.”’ The men looked at him, puzzled, doubt- ful, and surprized. *“‘We can’t promise that, sir,” said Bar- stow slowly. “It’s already understood in camp that we are to rest for two days when we get to Princeton, unless we are molested. The men are main fagged out after that march through the snow, and the gun-horses need rest just as badly.” Wayne stamped and fumed with cold and impatience. “But ye must—must!—get them over the river, where they’ll be safe from Von Erkheim or any other force Clinton may WILKESON O’CONNELL send against ye! ———, don’t ye see why?” Plainly they did not. “Look here, then—”’ And he stepped to a smooth sheet of snow beside the sentry trail, and began to draw lines upon it with his saber’s tip. The sergeants, blue and hunched against the cold, looked and listened attentively, while the colonels watched them, unmindful of the drops that formed and froze on the collars about their chins. “Here, where I make this hole,” said Wayne, “is Sir Harry Clinton, in New York City, with ten thousand men. Sir Guy Carleton is there, in Canada, with as many more; and yonder in Virginia, is Lord Corn- wallis with a third army nigh as large as the other two. Now, when any two of these armies come together across this wretched land, the Continental cause is lost; and what is there, aside from their own sloth, to hold them apart? The French are holed here, for the winter, at Newport and in Connecti- cut. Unhardened to our frosts they will be useless till the ice goes out. Then there are small commands of the New England troops, scattered through the little High- land strongholds that we held last winter; and the New York Line there, at Albany, to guard Washington’s rear from Carleton. ‘And there’s the rub—the New York Line is all we have to guard against Carleton. Be- fore now, we could always trust the hardy mountaineers of the New Hampshire Grants to keep watch and ward over the highway to the north, but we can trust them to do so no longer. Even now, while Tory Floyd Allen tries to gain the control of the Line, for the purpose, as I believe, of selling it to the enemy, his brothers, Ethan and Ira Allen, are negotiating the sale of the Grants to Carleton. They have been the king’s pawn in this fatal game we play, and when gone will be sorely missed; for then the New York Line can no longer be moved at will, but must be left there in the north to guard against Carleton. “Meanwhile, what is there to hold bold, but oh, so sleepy, Sir Harry in check from the south? Only the thin ranks of the New Jersey Line and our scanty selves, here- abouts,’ and he made another blur in the snow, “in Jersey, ready to sting Sir Harry’s tender hide, if he ventures forth to meet Cornwallis; as Washington will sting, if he moves north to join with Carleton. Now, do ye not see why the Pennsylvania Line must be saved intact— CORICLOO S CO