Curious as to whom they might be, his wife walked towards him, wiping her hands on her apron, and looked past his shoulder. By now, all six horsemen had forded the stream and were nearing the cabin. Her face went pale.

Archer reached for the loaded musket that was leaning against the wall by the door. Beth Archer laid a hand on his arm.

“It’s all right,” Archer said. “I’ll deal with them.” Gently removing his wife’s hand, he nudged Tam away from the door with his knee. “Good lad, stay.”

Before his wife could offer a protest or the dog follow, Archer cocked the musket and stepped outside, closing the door behind him. The hens clucked indignantly as they were forced to step out of his path.

Musket held loosely across his arms, he waited.

The riders slowed their mounts and fanned out, finally stopping in a rough line abreast in front of the cabin’s porch. One of them, a lean man in his forties with sallow features and the stain from an old powder burn on his right cheek, eased his horse forward. He was dressed in a long blue riding coat and a slouch hat. With his right hand resting on the musket laid across his saddle horn, he addressed the man on the ground.

“Morning, William! A fine day, wouldn’t you agree?”

“It was,” Archer said, without warmth.

The rider acknowledged the slight with a thin smile. He considered Archer for several long moments and then said, “You’ll know why we’re here.”

Archer met his gaze. “And you know my answer. You’ve had a wasted journey, Deacon. I’ve already told you; my loyalty’s to the King.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the rider said.

Archer’s eyes moved along the line of horsemen. They were dressed in a similar fashion to Deacon and all, save one, carried the same cold expression on his face. Archer was acquainted with each of them. Four were fellow homesteaders: Deacon, Isaac Meeker – the florid-faced man to Deacon’s right, who farmed land two valleys over – and the surly-looking pair on Deacon’s immediate left, Levi and Ephraim Smede.

The Smede brothers were seldom seen apart. Rumour had it that was the only way the pair could muster one functioning brain between them. When they weren’t helping their father on the family farm, they hired themselves out as labourers to anyone who wanted a wall built or a stream dammed – or someone intimidated.

Axel Shaw, the dour individual on Ephraim Smede’s left, was postmaster over at the settler village near Caughnawaga. Archer turned his attention to the rider at the other end of the line. Curly-haired, with angular features, he was the youngest of the group. Archer could see by the way his hands were fidgeting with his reins that he was more ill at ease than the others, as if he would rather have been someplace else.