"You are a good lad, Carus," he said gently. "I know how you feel."
I could not answer.
"You know," he said, "how many are called, how few chosen. You know that in these times a man must sink self and stand ready for any sacrifice, even the supreme and best."
He laid his hand on my shoulder: "Carus, I felt as you do now when his Excellency asked me to leave the line and the five splendid New York regiments just consolidated and given me to lead. But I obeyed; I gave up legitimate ambition; I renounced hope of that advancement all officers rightly desire; I left my New York regiments to come here to take command of a few farmers and forest-runners. God and his Excellency know best!"
I nodded, unable to speak.
"There is glory and preferment to be had in Virginia," he said; "there are stars to be won at Yorktown, Carus. But those stars will never glitter on this faded uniform of mine. So be it. Let us do our best, lad. It's all one in the end."
I nodded.
"And so," he continued pleasantly, "I send you to Thendara. None knows you for a partizan in this war. For four years you have been lost to sight; and if any Iroquois has heard of your living in New York, he must believe you to be a King's man. Your one danger is in answering the Iroquois summons as an ensign of a nation marked for punishment. How great that danger may be, you can judge better than I."
I thought for a while. The Canienga who had summoned me by belt could not prove I was a partizan of the riflemen who escorted me. I might have been absolutely non-partizan, traveling under escort of either side that promised protection from those ghostly rovers who scalped first and asked questions afterward.
The danger I ran as clan-ensign of a nation marked for punishment was an unknown quantity to me. From the Canienga belt-bearer I had gathered that there was no sanctuary for an Oneida envoy at Thendara; but what protection an ensign of the Wolf Clan might expect, I could not be certain of.
But there was one more danger. Suppose Walter Butler should appear to sit in council as ensign of his mongrel clan?
"Colonel," I said, "there is one thing to be done, and, as there is nobody else to accomplish this dog's work, I must perform it. I am trying not to be selfish--not to envy those whose lines are fallen in pleasant places--not to regret the happiness of battle which I have never known--not to desire those chances for advancement and for glory that--that all young men--crave----"