Rolf in the Woods

“Young man,” said the general, severely, “I don’t want any of your ’ifs’ or ’buts’; your orders are ’go.’ ’How’ and ’if’ are matters for you to find out; that’s what you are paid for.”

Rolf bowed; his cheeks were tingling. He was very angry at what he thought a most uncalled for rebuke, but he got over it, and he never forgot the lesson. It was Si Sylvanne that put it into rememberable form.

“A fool horse kin follow a turnpike, but it takes a man with wits to climb, swim, boat, skate, run, hide, go it blind, pick a lock, take the long way, round, when it’s the short way across, run away at the right time, or fight when it’s wise — all in one afternoon.” Rolf set out for the north carrying a bombastic (meant to be reassuring) message from Hampton that he would annihilate any enemy who dared to desecrate the waters of the lake.

It was on this trip that Rolf learned from Quonab the details of the latter’s visit to his people on the St. Regis. Apparently the joy of meeting a few of his own kin, with whom he could talk his own language, was offset by meeting with a large number of his ancient enemies the Mohawks. There had been much discussion of the possible war between the British and the Yankees. The Mohawks announced their intention to fight for the British, which was a sufficient reason for Quonab as a Sinawa remaining with the Americans; and when he left the St. Regis reserve the Indian was without any desire to reenter it.

At Plattsburg Rolf and Quonab met with another Albany acquaintance in General Wilkinson, and from him received despatches which they brought back to Albany, having covered the whole distance in eight days.

When 1812 was gone Rolf had done little but carry despatches up and down Lake Champlain. Next season found the Americans still under command of Generals Wilkinson and Hampton, whose utter incompetence was becoming daily more evident.

The year 1813 saw Rolf, eighteen years old and six feet one in his socks, a trained scout and despatch bearer.

By a flying trip on snowshoes in January he took letters, from General Hampton at Ticonderoga to Sackett’s Harbour and back in eight days, nearly three hundred miles. It made him famous as a runner, but the tidings that he brought were sad. Through him they learned in detail of the total defeat and capture of the American army at Frenchtown. After a brief rest he was sent across country on snowshoes to bear a reassuring message to Ogdensburg. The weather was much colder now, and the single blanket bed was dangerously slight; so “Flying Kittering,” as they named him, took a toboggan and secured Quonab as his running mate. Skookum was given into safe keeping. Blankets, pots, cups, food, guns, and despatches were strapped on the toboggan, and they sped away at dawn from Ticonderoga on the 18th of February 1813, headed northwestward, guided by little but the compass. Thirty miles that day they made in spite of piercing blasts and driving snow. But with the night there began a terrible storm with winds of zero chill. The air was filled with stinging, cutting snow. When they rose at daylight they were nearly buried in drifts, although their camp was in a dense, sheltered thicket. Guided wholly by the compass they travelled again, but blinded by the whirling white they stumbled and blundered into endless difficulties and made but poor headway. After dragging the toboggan for three hours, taking turns at breaking the way, they were changing places when Rolf noticed a large gray patch on Quonab’s cheek and nose.

“Quonab, your face is frozen,” he said.

“So is yours,” was the reply.

Now they turned aside, followed a hollow until they reached a spruce grove, where they camped and took an observation, to learn that the compass and they held widely different views about the direction of travel. It was obviously useless to face the storm. They rubbed out their frozen features with dry snow and rested by the fire.

No good scout seeks for hardship; he avoids the unnecessary trial of strength and saves himself for the unavoidable. With zero weather about them and twenty-four hours to wait in the storm, the scouts set about making themselves thoroughly comfortable.

With their snowshoes they dug away the snow in a circle a dozen feet across, piling it up on the outside so as to make that as high as possible. When they were down to the ground, the wall of snow around them was five feet high. Now they went forth with the hatchets, cut many small spruces, and piled them against the living spruces about the camp till there was a dense mass of evergreen foliage ten feet high around them, open only at the top, where was a space five feet across. With abundance of dry spruce wood, a thick bed of balsam boughs, and plenty of blankets they were in what most woodmen consider comfort complete.