Page 63 - A Hero of Ticonderoga

CHAPTER XIV

--GABRIEL’S GOOD SERVICE

On the afternoon of the 9th of May, 1775, Job and Nathan laid their guns in
the canoe and stood beside her ready to set her afloat in the brown water,

whose ripples softly lapped the drift of dried sedges along the shore. Job
looked anxiously about, and once more, as he had several times previously

done, he whistled a loud shrill note through his fingers.

"Where on airth is that dog? He mistrusted somethin’ was up and run off.

He’d ortu be tied up, but we can’t wait any longer, an’ he’ll hafter run loose.
Wal, le’s be off."

Lifting the canoe, they set her afloat, stepped lightly on board, and,
kneeling in the bottom, sent her flying down the creek. They skirted the

lake almost beneath the spreading branches of the maples, now already
dappled with the tender green of budding leaves. A little back from the

naked, western shore, with its crumbling ruins of the old French water
battery, uprose the gray battlements and barracks of Ticonderoga, and the
blazoned cross of England floating lazily in the breeze.

"I’ve follered it for many a day," said Job sadly, "an’ I never thought to go

agin it. But I b’lieve I’m right," and he turned his face resolutely forward.

The turmoil and horror of war seemed far removed from the serene sky, the

rippled water kissing the quiet shores, and the pervading sense of the earth’s
renewing life, enforced by bursting buds and opening flowers and songs of

birds. Even the grim fortress seemed but a memento of conflict long since
ended forever.

Sweeping into the broad mouth of the creek, they joined the motley crowd
already gathered there. The assemblage was composed of all who were

capable of bearing arms, from gray-headed veterans of the last war, to the
striplings who had not yet been mustered on a training field. Job received
hearty greetings from more than one old comrade whom he had not seen