here's trouble. Look at the grin on
him--and his hatchet shined up like a Cayuga's war-axe!"

I opened the despatch; it was from Schuyler, countermanding his
instructions for me to go to Stanwix, and directing me to warn every
settlement in the Kingsland district that McDonald and some three
hundred Indians and renegades were loose on the Schoharie, and that
their outlying scouts had struck Broadalbin.

I broke the wax of the second despatch; it was from Harrow, briefly
thanking me for the capture of Beacraft, adding that the man had been
sent to Albany to await court-martial.

That meant that Beacraft must hang; a most disagreeable feeling came
over me, and I tore open the third and last paper, a bulky document,
and read it:

"VARICK MANOR,
"June the 2d.
"An hour to dawn.

"In my bedroom I am writing to you the adieu I should have
said the night you left. Murphy, a rifleman, goes to you with
despatches in an hour: he will take this to you, ...
wherever you are.

"I saw the man you sent in. Father says he must surely hang.
He was so pale and silent, he looked so dreadfully tired--and
I have been crying a little--I don't know why, because all
say he is a great villain.

"I wonder whether you are well and whether you remember me."
("me" was crossed out and "us" written very carefully.) "The
house is so strange without you. I go into your room
sometimes. Cato has pressed all your fine clothes. I go into
your room to read. The light is very good there. I am reading
the Poems of Pansard. You left a fern between the pages to
mark the poem called 'Our Deaths'; did you know it? Do you
admire that verse? It seems sad to me. And it is not true,
either. Lovers seldom die together." (This was crossed out,
and the letter went on.) "Two people who love--" ("love" was
crossed out heavily and the line continued)--"two friends
seldom die at the same instant. Otherwise there would be no
terror in death.

"I forgot to say that Isene, your mare, is very well. Papa
and the children are well, and Ruyven a-pestering General
Schuyler to make him a cornet in the legion of horse, and
Cecile, all airs, goes about with six officers to carry her
shawl and fan.

"For me--I sit with Lady Schuyler when I have the
opportunity. I love her; she is so quiet and gentle and lets
me si