Free Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds

ain’t anybody else missing except them that have a lawful excuse.”
    At that moment Kast came out of his house in a brown coat. “It’s two minutes to ten,” he said. “By the clock.”
    Somebody laughed.
    “Time’s always by that clock of his, when Kast’s around.”
    Martin and Reall walked up.
    Reall cried out immediately, “George.”
    “Yes,” said Weaver.
    “There’s a couple of Seneca Indians up to Wolff’s. They’re shaved. Reckon they’re going to paint. Maybe Butler or somebody’s hanging around there.”
    “How do you know they’re Senecas?” Weaver asked sourly. He didn’t want anything to interfere with the muster. With Captain Demooth away, the whole responsibility devolved on him.
    “Ain’t I telling you, George?”
    Just then, tardily, Kast’s clock wound itself up and struck seven. The notes came feebly metallic to the waiting men.
    “That’s ten,” cried Kast. “She hurt her inwards somehow coming up here, and the bell’s never caught up to the time since.”
    Weaver took his tobacco from his mouth and cradled it behind him in his hand while with the other he held a paper before his eyes and rattled off the names.
    “Adam Hartman.”
    “Here.”
    “Jeams MacNod.”
    “Here.”
    On down the list. Now and then a man answered, “He can’t come. He’s gone to the Flats getting flour.”…“Perry’s home. Doc Petry told him his wife might most likely freshen this morning.”…“He cut his foot grubbing brush in the stump lot.”
    Obedient to the prescribed ritual, Weaver turned round to face the absent captain.
    “All present or accounted for.”
    It brought the plug in his hand into view. He recovered too late. Restoring it to his mouth, he roared thickly, “Shoulder arms.”
    The line raggedly shouldered their guns, some to the right, some to the left. They faced Weaver with the gravity of corn-stooks. No two of them were dressed alike. Some had coats, of homespun or black cloth; some, like Gil, wore hunting shirts.
    Weaver stared at them as if he were hypnotized. Without the captain he couldn’t think what should be done next.
    Someone said, “Can’t we have the inspection and get it over with? It’s damned hot standing here.”
    “Sure,” said Weaver.
    He went down the line. Now and then he took a rifle and looked it over closely. Once he made a man lift his shoes.
    “You got to get new soles on them. I ought to fine you, Marcy.”
    “I got paper in their inside,” said Marcy.
    “Law says shoes equipped for a month’s march.”
    “I couldn’t walk that far if I had the shoes.”
    “It’s law.” He came to Reall. He looked at him for a long minute.
    “Give me your gun.”
    Reall handed it over.
    “It’s clean, Sergeant,” he said. “I cleaned it yesterday myself.”
    “Give me your ramrod.”
    “It’s in the gun,” said Reall, with a wink.
    “No it ain’t.”
    “God, one of the kids had it, I guess.”
    “Give me yours, Martin.”
    He took Gil’s ramrod and dropped it down the barrel. It sank less than halfway. Weaver took it out, then tipped the gun nose down and whacked the stock with the palm of his hand. An assortment of bean seeds dropped out. Somebody started laughing. Reall stared.
    “Them boys been playing bean game,” he said. “I couldn’t find the seeds. They said they threw them out. Ain’t that a place to hide them!”
    Weaver handed back the gun.
    “Private Reall, dirty gun, one shilling.”
    The inspection was finished.
    “Fall out.”
    The men drifted apart.
    “Say,” said someone. “How about eating early? Then we can go home. I got my two-acre patch to finish to-night.”
    “That’s a good idea.”
    “Maybe it ain’t legal,” said George.
    “We ought to do something.”
    “Let’s eat first.”
    They had a meal cooked for them by Mrs. Kast. She and her two daughters scurried and finished the cooking of it and brought it out with six jugs of beer. The men lay around on thestubble of the hayfield and