Close together the Weisers stepped from the gangplank of the Lyon. Their question as to what they were to do was soon solved by their prompt shepherding from the wharf into small boats by the officers of the port.

"Where do we go?" asked John Conrad in astonishment.

"There has been ship fever on the Lyon," answered some one. "You go to Nuttall's Island."

Like millions to follow them, the Germans soon gazed from Nuttall's Island across the bay. They were given little houses to live in, and as the magistrate of Oberdorf had greeted them on Blackheath, they greeted presently their friends from the other ships. There were happy reunions, there were stories of death and danger by sea, there was the common hope of better things.

When the cool winds of September began to blow and they were still waiting to be released from what seemed like captivity, the Germans became impatient and then frightened. They wished to set to work so that they might the sooner finish their task of tar-making and begin to labor on their own account. During the long journey boys and girls had grown up; like Conrad, other boys longed for adventure, and like Margareta, other young women wished to begin the establishment of a home. Among the Germans there was suddenly a new spirit of independence. Here was not the goal for which they had striven.

"The Governor has not completed his arrangements," said John Conrad to his impatient countrymen.

"Then let us go to that Schoharie which the Indians gave us." Conrad spoke for all the younger Germans.

"We are bound to make tar," reminded John Conrad, who looked at his son in amazement.

Presently came Governor Hunter, who had crossed the ocean in one of the last ships of the fleet. His visit, so eagerly expected, had a sorrowful outcome. From one end of the settlement to the other he walked and at the cabin of John Conrad he paused.

"You are to go soon to Livingston Manor to begin your work. You are the man who was in the Queen's audience room. I depend upon you to be a good influence among your fellows." His bright gaze traveled from child to child. "You have a large family."

Before John Conrad could answer, young Conrad stepped from the doorway, disregarding his father's frown.

"Oh, sir, I wish we might go to Schoharie!"

Governor Hunter looked at him coldly.

"You will go where I send you."

When the Governor had gone, his agent announced a startling command which he had left. Among the Germans were too many children. In New York and on Long Island were farmers and merchants who needed help. To them the orphans and some other young lads must be apprenticed.

"Not our children!" cried Magdalena.

John Conrad shook his head ominously. He had counted his children over before he left the ship,—was separation to come so soon? That evening he admonished gentle Christopher and grave George Frederick tenderly and solemnly.

"We must submit to the Governor's will," said he. "My little lads know what is right. To do right is all that is required of them."

The next day boats anchored at Nuttall's Island and from them stepped English and Dutch farmers and their wives. Upon the heads of Christopher and George Frederick were laid a pair of plump hands.

"These I would like," said a kind voice.

The eager eyes of the Weiser family gazed through tears.

"Both together?" asked John Conrad thickly.

"Both together," answered the farmer's wife. "We have a good farm and no children." When she saw that little Christopher cried, she put her hand into the deep pocket in the skirt of her husband's coat and drew out a bar of maple sugar, the only candy of the colonies. "I put something in my pocket for my new children." Then she sat down on the rough bench before the little door. "The boats will not go back for a long time to come. In the mean time we will talk."

Now more tears were shed, but they were not bitter tears. The English of the Weisers was broken, but it sufficed to relate the sad history of Gross Anspach, the kindness of George Reimer, the cruel cold on Blackheath, and the dangers of the sea. When the time for parting came, the Weisers trooped to the boats. Peter Zenger was to go also, with a brisk printer, Bradford by name. Hands were waved until they could wave no longer; then the Weisers turned back to their little hut.

"Two are gone," said John Conrad, bewildered. "My dear children! My dear children!" Then poor John Conrad burst once more into tears.

When in November twelve hundred of the four thousand Germans who had left Blackheath ascended the Hudson River, there was another grievous parting. Margareta's young man had found work in New York, but until he earned a little he and Margareta could not marry. One of the Weisers, at least, looked back instead of forward as the heavily laden boats made their slow way up the stream. Conrad wished to stay also and find work, but neither the Governor's agent nor his father would give him permission. The agent, Cast by name, was sharp of tongue, and with him the young men had begun to dispute. Others like Conrad were strong of will and hot of temper. In the long period of waiting, gratitude to the English had somewhat faded.

The arrival at the new home was dreary. Upon the stretch of forest in which the settlement was to be made there was only the agent's comfortable log house. It was late afternoon when the pilgrims were put ashore. At sight of the unimproved and repellent spot they looked at one another in dismay.

"Is it for this that we have come so far?"

John Conrad began again his old work of encouragement.

"At last we have work to do. By night we must have some sort of shelter."

The next day substantial houses of logs began to rise among the tall pine trees. John Conrad's suspicions about his second daughter proved to be true. Quiet Magdalena and the young man upon whom she had smiled announced that they, too, would build a house.

Then, when houses were built and logs were burning in the great chimneys, the Germans waited idly. Tar-making was not to begin, it seemed, until spring. Again John Conrad counseled patience.

"We are here, we cannot get away and, moreover, we have given our word. We are fed and clothed. In the spring things will be better. We cannot expect everything at once."

Young Conrad answered sharply.

"The men say that this land will never be good farming land, father. After the pine trees are cut, we shall have nothing. I would find that Schoharie which the Indians gave us. There is our home."

John Conrad shook his head.

"We must have patience," said he.

Slowly the winter passed. In the cold of January little John Frederick, so loved and cherished, died, and was the first of the colony to be buried in the new land.

"Now," said John Conrad, "it is our land, indeed."

In April Magdalena was married by a clergyman who came from the older German settlement across the river. The wedding was merry: even Margareta, who had heard but once from her lover, put anxiety away and smiled and danced the old-fashioned dances of Gross Anspach weddings. When Magdalena had gone to the little log house with her husband, John Conrad sat before his door.

"She has done well. Now of nine, only four are left me."

Once during the winter Conrad saw an Indian. The tall figure crossed the end of a little glade and as fast as he could Conrad pursued it. But the Indian had vanished; there was neither sound nor motion in the still forest. Gradually, their lands taken from them, themselves often ill-treated, the Indians were withdrawing from the neighborhood of the settlements.

In great excitement Conrad hurried to his father.

"Father, I have seen an Indian. Let us ask him to guide us to Schoharie!"

"We are not permitted to go."

"Let us go without permission. I can fight, father."

Again John Conrad regarded his son with astonishment.

"We have come for peace, not for war. God knows we have suffered enough from war! Let me hear no more of such madness, Conrad, and sit no more with the young men, but with your sisters."

In the early spring tools were given out for the cutting of the pine trees and slashes were made in the tough bark so that the sap might gather. In two years the trees would be felled and burned in kilns.

In the early summer came a new command. Over the great continent evil forces were astir. Like the bent bow, the line of the French and their allied Indians stretched from Montreal to New Orleans, its curve including the Mississippi; like the string within stretched the English line. There was conflict at Montreal where the Five Nations were true to their English alliance, and thither the Germans were to go in three companies. At once they forgot their wrongs and willingly they started, John Conrad in command of a company.

The Germans gave the Queen little help, not because they were not willing and able, but because the short campaign was almost over. They marched back as they had come, congratulating themselves upon the pay they would receive for military service. At last they could buy a few spinning-wheels and perhaps a horse and cow.

But the Governor's agent laughed.

"Does a man pay extra to his servants?"

"You did not give us our due food while they were away!" cried young Conrad.

The agent shook his fist.

"Return your arms and get back to your work!"

When the arms were returned, a dozen guns were lacking. The older Germans were clearly puzzled, but the guns could not be found.

In a week the Governor came again to visit his colony. His shoulders were bent and his countenance had changed. The good Queen was dead and the support promised for his cherished enterprise of tar-making came slowly from her successor. To the Governor appealed now the leading men of the settlement. Perhaps it was the cruel contrast between his magnificence and their rags which made him at first willing to listen and to conciliate.

As John Conrad had talked bravely and simply to the Queen, so he spoke to the Governor. The oldest of the settlers shared by this time the discontent of the young men.

"It is almost a year since we came and we have done nothing for ourselves. Even if we can make tar, we are not advanced because this land is not farming land. We beg to be allowed to go to that country which the Indians gave us, where we can have permanent homes. Is there no pine there?"

The Governor made no answer.

"And we would have pay for our service as soldiers. We are very poor, as you can see, and soldiering was not in our bargain."

The Governor smiled as his agent had smiled.

"You will serve yourself and your friends best by counseling obedience," said he. "You cannot go away."

When the Governor had gone, his agent walked down the street of the settlement. In his path stood young Conrad, who forgot once more his father's admonitions.

"The Germans have guns, sir," said Conrad.

Cast returned at once to his house. In a moment his servant was riding rapidly along the river-bank to intercept the Governor at the next settlement, twenty miles away.

"I am charged with a message to Your Honor," he cried breathlessly at sight of the Governor. "The German people are armed. Our lives are not safe."

The Governor sailed up the river once more. When he reached Livingston Manor, it was dark and the Germans knew nothing of his coming nor of the prompt departure of the agent's servant through the forest to the north. The next afternoon they were called together. To their amazement the Governor appeared. In a stern voice he read a contract to them.

"But that is not our contract," protested a mystified John Conrad. "We—"

The Governor waved them from his presence.

"It is your contract. Think over your situation and return to-morrow."

That evening the older Germans talked earnestly in the Weiser house. They agreed to ask again that they be permitted to leave and that they be paid. But to resist they were helpless. Resistance, moreover, was wrong.

For a while Conrad listened; then he joined a score of young men who waited for him outside in the shadow.

"It is all for peace," said he. "I believe that Governor Hunter means to entrap them."

Quietly the young men slipped into the darker woods. Into a little cave high above the river, Conrad crept on hands and knees. One by one he passed out a dozen guns. Though the leader of the enterprise was the youngest of all, his friends looked at him with admiration. In their admiration Conrad forgot his own somewhat troublesome conscience.

In the morning, John Conrad and his friends visited the Governor. They had, they said, considered their situation, and they were not satisfied.

The Governor looked over their heads in the direction of Albany.

"We do not wish to be undutiful," explained John Conrad. "What we ask is only justice. We did not promise to stay forever in a barren land." John Conrad's voice trembled as it had trembled in Gross Anspach when he spoke of the country which they had seen in their dreams. "We wish to go to Schoharie."

"Whether or not you 'wish to go to Schoharie,'" the Governor mocked them like a child, "you are to stay here." Now the Governor stamped his foot. "Here is your land, here you are to live and die!"

The agent could not resist a temptation to add a word.

"You should be shot for your impertinence!"

Then the agent gave a wild scream. The punishment which he proposed so angrily seemed likely to be carried into effect upon himself. Upon the little house he saw an armed host approaching. Waiting for sound of strife, the young men had come to the defense of their elders.

"They will murder us!" screamed the agent.

Young Conrad stepped inside the door.

"We ask only—" Then Conrad paused. Neither the Governor nor the agent was listening to what he was saying. Even the eyes of his father, which had looked upon him with horrified amazement, were turned away. From the young men behind him came a loud warning to run, and he turned his head. Among the trees was a gleam of red and a glitter of steel. The agent's servant had made a swift trip to the British garrison at Albany.

"Captain, collect these guns," commanded the Governor. Then he turned to young Conrad. "Another stirring-up of rebellion and you will pay the penalty of a rebel."

Now the Germans gave up their arms and went back to their work. Some of the trees were said to be fit for felling and a few kilns were constructed. In these the pine knots were first to be burned. To the task of gathering them the little children were appointed and Conrad was made their superintendent. The work was humiliating and he obeyed unwillingly. His father had said nothing to him of his rebellion, but he knew that it was constantly in John Conrad's mind. The presence of the red-coated soldiers, who treated the whole settlement like dangerous criminals, was, John Conrad may have thought, reproach enough.

Now another winter came and passed, a winter of idleness and discontent for Conrad, of sadness for Margareta, and of great physical suffering for all. The miserable substitutes for woolen clothes, the poor food, the bitter cold weakened their bodies and depressed their minds. No longer could Conrad enliven the camp with music, since his dear flute had to be exchanged for food. The Governor's agent now played upon it, but he played no German tunes. Barbara and Sabina grew as pale and thin as their older sister, whose hopes of seeing her lover had almost died. Once more as on shipboard John Conrad thought and spoke of the beauties of the heavenly country.

Presently John Conrad was served with an astonishing notice. The Germans might go! Hearts leaped; there were cries of joy. Then the hand which held the order began to tremble.

"We may go south or east, but not north or west. To Schoharie we dare not go. It is my opinion that this business of tar-making has failed. It cannot be that they will turn us adrift and yet forbid us that which is ours. God in heaven help us!"

To the confused and terrified settlement came another fearful threat. No longer, said the Governor, would he feed women or children who had no men to repay him in labor. A few single men married at once their young countrywomen who were without support. Among them was John Conrad.

The summer passed in uncertainty. In September another notice came. The business of tar-making was for the present ended. The Germans would receive no more food, but must shift for themselves. With cruel thoroughness they were now abandoned.

"And we dare not go to Schoharie!" they cried. "Last week Kniskern tried to get away and the soldiers brought him back. We—"

Then upon the frightened assembly rushed young Conrad.

"The soldiers are gone!"

With one accord the council adjourned, running to the upper end of the settlement. The camp-ground was deserted.

Now it was proposed that the settlement should start as a body with the dawn. At this poor Margareta burst into tears. In the wilderness her young man could never find her. It had been some small comfort to feel that at least he knew where she was.

But Margareta was to have a little longer to watch and wait. Once more the dissuading voice of John Conrad warned his companions.

"My friends! We do not know where this land is. A few chosen men must make their way thither in the two rude boats owned by the settlers, and consult with the Indians and return. At Albany we might find a guide. It is the only way."

For hours the council sat in the Weiser house. It was agreed that seven men should start in the morning. Conrad sat listening, his eyes looking through the log walls, across the blue river, his heart longing to see once more those great warriors, his friends. When the council had adjourned, he caught his father by the arm.

"Oh, father, let me go, too!"

"We dare not take more than are necessary, lad."

"I will be wise and patient, father."

"You have yet to prove yourself to be so, Conrad." John Conrad looked gravely into the beseeching eyes. "Your time of responsibility will come, lad; see that you are ready for it."