"Is it so!" muttered Burke, casting a smouldering side-look at me. "D'ye mind what he done three year come Shrove Tuesday? The day I gave out I was a better man than Sir William's new blacksmith? Well, then--av ye disremember--that scut of a Nick shtole me breeches, an' he put them on a billy-goat, an' tuk him to the tap-room where was company. An', 'Here,' says he, 'is a better Irishman than you, Jimmy Burke!--an' a better fighter, too.' An' wid that the damned goat rares up an' butts me over; an' up I gets an' he butts me over, an' up an' down I go, an' the five wits clean knocked out o' me, an' the company an' Sir William all yelling like loons an' laying odds on the goat----" I lay there convulsed with laughter, remembering now this prank of the most mischievous boy I ever knew. Burke licked his lips grimly at the memory of that ancient wrong. "Sure, he's th' bould wan f'r to come into me house wid the score unreckoned an' all that balance agin' him." "Touch pewter with him and forgive the lad," said I. "These are sterner days, Jimmy, and we should cherish no private malice here where we may be put to it to stand siege." "Is it thrue, sor, that the destructives are on the Sacandaga?" "Yes, it is true. Fish House, Summer House, and Fonda's Bush are in ashes, Jimmy, and your late friend, Sir John, is at Buck Island with a thousand Indians, regulars, and Tories, and like to pay us a call before planting time." "Oh, my God," says Burke, "the divil take Sir John an' the black heart of him av he comes back here to murther his old neighbors! Sorra the day we let him scape!--him an' Alex White, an' Toby Tice an' moody Wally Butler,--an' ould John, an' Indian Claus, an' Black Guy!--may the divil take the whole Tory ruck o' them!----" He checked himself; behind him, through the door, entered a Continental Captain; and I sat up in bed to do him courtesy. As I suspected, here proved to be our Commandant come to learn of me my news; and it presently appeared that Nick had run to the jail with an account of how I lay here crippled. Well, the Commandant was a simple, kindly man, whose present anxiety made little of military custom. And so he had come instantly to learn my news of me; and we talked there alone for an hour. At his summons a servant fetched paper, ink, pen and sand; and, whilst he looked on, I wrote out my report to him. Also, I made for him a drawing of the Drowned Lands from Fish House to Mayfield, marking all roads and paths and trails, and all canoe water, carries, and cleared land. For, as Brent-Meester, no man had more accurate knowledge of Tryon than had I; and it was all clearly in my mind, so that to make a map of it proved no task at all. I asked him if I was to remain detached and with authority to raise a company of rangers--as had once been given me--or whether, perhaps, the Line lacked commissioned officers, saying that it was all one to me and that I wished only to serve where most needed.