lpen if the
opportunity ever arose to punish that villain. It was easy to see with
this evidence before him, how the awful deed had been accomplished. With
the moose hoofs strapped upon his feet the Yorker had crept through the
forest on the trail of the unconscious Jonas Harding; had seen him shoot
the doe; and then falling upon him suddenly had beaten him to the earth
with his clubbed rifle and had bruised and mangled him so terribly that
the neighbors, at first glance, pronounced the poor man killed by a mad
buck. Hurrying from the vicinity, dress and hands covered with blood as
Crow Wing had seen him, Halpen had hidden the deer hoofs in the hollow
of the tree, and escaped to Albany, his vengeance accomplished.

"But he shall suffer for this yet," thought the youth, with compressed
lips. "God will punish him if the courts do not. And sometime he may be
delivered into my hand, and if he is----"

The implied threat frightened him, and he did not follow it even in his
thoughts, but by again turning his attention to the matter which Ethan
Allen's visit the day before had suggested, he strove to bring his mind
into better tone before meeting his mother. He feared that the
expression on his features would betray something of his horror and
determination to her sharp eyes. When he reached home, however, he found
the family so greatly excited that nobody thought to either ask
questions or to notice his behavior. A drill had been called at
Bennington and Enoch was forced to saddle the horse and hurry away at
once. Under the present conditions it was thought best for Bryce to
remain at home, for if the Green Mountain Boys marched upon Ticonderoga
the younger Harding could not be spared to accompany the expedition.

The Council was in session and the leaders of the Green Mountain Boys
remained in Bennington for more than a week. Couriers had arrived from
the south and east and it was known that the British were rapidly being
shut up in Boston. The Massachusetts Colony was afire with wrath because
of the Lexington massacre. The Grants people were quite as rebellious
against the King's authority, with the sad affair at Westminster fresh
in their minds. The proposal to capture the British strongholds on the
lake met with favor everywhere. Small bodies of armed men began to come
in and a camp was planned at Castleton. It was said that a large body of
troops was to march from Western Massachusetts and Connecticut to aid
the expedi