"…This meeting is over. Get out."
If Phineas and Barnaby could have sat down and talked of a worse thing to be that day, they probably still wouldn't have been able to think of what a blasted thing it could be, to be assigned as sentinels on the doorway outside Colonel Munro's war room at that precise time.
Angry men filtered out of the room a few seconds after the Colonel's gruff yell, murmuring and rumbling like a dammed river. The principal agitators, Captain Winthrop and the strange trapper who dressed like a heathen, were tight-lipped and quiet. Nobody looked back at them, but Phineas noticed the way his younger colleague plastered himself closer to the wall as they passed, as if they'd somehow expand their anger to include them, if they saw them.
Once the militia was gone, an uncomfortable silence stretched over the corridor and the war room. Then Colonel Munro muttered something, to which Major Heyward gave a short, polite answer, which prompted Captain Beams to say something else, and the voices inside the room settled.
Phineas heaved a sigh of relief.
"Figure they'll stay?" Barnaby was once again firm-legged and holding his musket, like the British sentries with their furry hats, but his voice was insecure.
"Aye. Munro said he'd shoot them if they left, reckon they've got to be seen if they leave, and they've got to be alive to protect their families, so that's that."
"I guess so." Barnaby rocked back and forth on his toes. "But I heard that, when the Winthrop fellow went to get terms from Webb, they said they'd simply vanish into the woods one day if they weren't allowed to go protect their families."
Phineas made a noise of assent. "Hm. That they might."
Having come from another part of New York county, Phineas and Barnaby didn't know much about the circle of smooth-talking, rapid-firing men that surrounded Captain Jack Winthrop – not beyond the legends, at least. Phineas knew the young blond captain had a way with words, knew he and the men whom he called his friends were widely regarded as people of morals who knew their way around a musket.
The people who'd arrived with the Colonel's daughters, on the other hand…
"Hey, Barnaby. You heard about the Colonel's daughters, right?"
"What of them."
"Well, seems like they were ambushed by the Ottawa or something on the way here, and the two Mahicans and the blue-eyed trapper saved 'em."
"What, they're not Mohawks?"
"No! John is friends with one of the scouts, Shari-something, and he says he said they're Mahicans." Phineas felt a pleasant swell of conceit at being once more the bearer of the news.
"Oh." Barnaby seemed to consider that piece of information neither here nor there. Time to take out the heavy artillery, then.
"I was near the gate when they arrived, you know. Saw them arrive." He waited a little, for effect. "Miss Munro was on the arm of the trapper, and Miss Alice was on the arm of the Mahican, the younger one."
Barnaby finally turned to look at him with shock. "But I thought Miss Munro was engaged to marry Major Heyward!"
"Nay. Seems both girls lost their hearts somewhere in the wilderness. And that's not all." Phineas dangled the little piece of information like it was a fresh cut of venison, baiting.
"No?"
"No! I asked Ian – he's part of the Captain's inner circle." Phineas thought that sounded properly important, though he wasn't sure about any of the Captain's circles. "He didn't believe me at first, that the Major arrived alone and the rest of them were in couples, but Samuel told me this morning that they all talked about it, before the meeting today. Said the Mahican boy as good as told them he was engaged to the younger Miss Munro."
Phineas felt giddy as he watched Barnaby's eyes widen to twice their size. "And Colonel Munro said yes?"
"Of course he didn't, you blockhead." A bolt of inspiration struck Phineas then. "Didn't you hear the yelling earlier? I'd bet Munro's afraid his daughter might make a run for it if he lets the militia go. Bet the boy and Miss Alice thought to seize the chance."
"But who'd marry a fancy English girl to a long-haired heathen like that, Phineas?" Then a shrewd kind of tilt bent Barnaby's eyebrows. "Are you sure you didn't just make all of that up?"
"Of course not!" But of course, Phineas was in a pinch: who would marry a young girl to a redskin? There were colonies lower south that had laws against, and while New York had nothing of the kind as far as he knew, it would be a scandal of a match anywhere from there to Albany. But then the second bolt of inspiration struck Phineas, and the story was saved. "They'll go to the Moravians, of course."
"The missionaries who live with the heathens?"
"Aye, the very same. You're full young to remember, but the Moravians had a settlement here in New York with the Mahicans some ten years ago. Lived with and defended the Indians, they did, and then they were ousted as traitors. But them Moravians'll still be around, in Pennsylvania. Figure they'll go there."
Barnaby looked at Phineas as if he'd whispered him the date of the Second Coming. Phineas could have crowed with delight.
Barnaby scratched his forehead in contemplation. "No wonder the Colonel's at the end of his tether. The French are taking his fort, the Indians are taking his girls!"