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[Illustration: Elsin Grey.]



_The_

RECKONING



BY

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

AUTHOR OF "CARDIGAN," "THE MAID-AT-ARMS," "THE KING IN YELLOW," ETC.



NEW YORK
A. WESSELS COMPANY
1907


Copyright, 1905, by
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

_Published September, 1905_

PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N.Y.




PREFACE


The author's intention is to treat, in a series of four or five
romances, that part of the war for independence which particularly
affected the great landed families of northern New York: the Johnsons,
represented by Sir William, Sir John, Guy Johnson, and Colonel Claus;
the notorious Butlers, father and son; the Schuylers, Van Rensselaers,
and others.

The first romance of the series, Cardigan, was followed by the second,
The Maid-at-Arms. The third in order is not completed. The fourth is the
present volume.

As Cardigan pretended to portray life on the baronial estate of Sir
William Johnson, the first uneasiness concerning the coming trouble, the
first discordant note struck in the harmonious councils of the Long
House, so, in The Maid-at-Arms, which followed in order, the author
attempted to paint a patroon family disturbed by the approaching rumble
of battle. That romance dealt with the first serious split in the
Iroquois Confederacy; it showed the Long House shattered though not
fallen; the demoralization and final flight of the great landed families
who remained loyal to the British Crown; and it struck the key-note to
the future attitude of the Iroquois toward the patriots of the
frontier--revenge for their losses at the battle of Oriskany--and ended
with the march of the militia and Continental troops on Saratoga.

The third romance, as yet incomplete and unpublished, deals with the
war-path and those who followed it, led by the landed gentry of Tryon
County, and ends with the first solid blow delivered at the Long House,
and the terrible punishment of the Great Confederacy.

The present romance, the fourth in chronological order, picks up the
thread at that point.

The author is not conscious of having taken any liberties with history
in preparing a framework of facts for a mantle of romance.

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.

NEW YORK, _May 26, 1904_.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                PAGE

   I.--THE SPY                                            1

  II.--THE HOUSEHOLD                                     24

 III.--THE COQ D'OR                                      44

  IV.--SUNSET AND DARK                                   67

   V.--THE ARTILLERY BALL                                97

  VI.--A NIGHT AND A MORNING                            127

 VII.--THE BLUE FOX                                     164

VIII.--DESTINY                                          188

  IX.--INTO THE NORTH                                   212

   X.--SERMONS IN STONES                                239

  XI.--THE TEST                                         266

 XII.--THENDARA                                         289

XIII.--THENDARA NO MORE                                 313

 XIV.--THE BATTLE OF JOHNSTOWN                          336

  XV.--BUTLER'S FORD                                    366




TO MY FRIEND

J. HAMBLEN SEARS

WHOSE UNSELFISH FRIENDSHIP AND SOUND ADVICE

I ACKNOWLEDGE IN THIS

DEDICATION




    I

    _His muscle to the ax and plow,
    His calm eye to the rifle sight,
    Or at his country's beck and bow,
    Setting the fiery cross alight,
    Or, in the city's pageantry,
    Serving the Cause in secrecy,--
    Behold him now, haranguing kings
    While through the shallow court there rings
    The light laugh of the courtezan;
    This the New Yorker, this the Man!_


    II

    _Standing upon his blackened land,
    He saw the flames mount up to God,
    He saw the death tracks in the sand,
    And the dead children on the sod,
    He saw the half-charred door, unbarred,
    The dying hound he left on guard,
    And that still thing he once had wed
    Sprawled on the threshold dripping red:
    Dry-eyed he primed his rifle pan;
    This the New Yorker, this the Man!_


    III

    He plowed the graveyard of his dead
    And sowed the grain to feed a host;
    In silent lands untenanted
    Save by the Sachems' painted ghost
    He set the