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Stimulated by the presents as well as by the artful representations of British agents the Indians had consequently become hostile. Early in 1778 there were many indications of a general disposition among the savages to make war on the United States, and the frontiers, from the Mohawk to the Ohio, were threatened with the tomahawk and the scalping-knife.
As bad luck would have it, just as we were coming back through the camp, we came upon a Mohawk chief. He looked hard at us, and then came up and said: "'The Owl thought that he knew all his brothers; but here are two whose faces are strange to him.
They would have made a stronger defense had they not been under the impression that it was the Mohawks who were upon them; and to be killed by a Mohawk was no more than an Algonquin should expect.
It must be done, however, if I would write fairly the part which we Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley took in the troubles and triumphs round-about Fort Schuyler; but I will give the story in as few words as possible. It so chanced that during this day the rations dealt out to us were smaller than before, and this gave the fool croakers an opportunity of airing their grievances in fine style.
In their search for peltries the Dutch were drawn up the Hudson, up the Connecticut, and down the Delaware, where they had Swedes for their rivals. By way of the Hudson the Dutch traders had access to Lake Champlain, and to the Mohawk, the headwaters of which connected through the lakes of western New York with Lake Ontario.
So he accepted the Red Indians' compliment, knowing well that it was the loftiest honor those people could confer upon a white man. It was the morning of October first when the royal train steamed into the little city of Brantford, where carriages awaited to take the Prince and his suite to the "Old Mohawk Church," in the vicinity of which the ceremony was to take place.
Though we could not see one another I knew that both the adventurers were young, and that they expected to be called to severe account for the lawless act they were committing. The girl, talking English, or French, or Mohawk almost in one breath, took the blame upon herself and made light of the boy's self-reproaches.
Should he return with hostile instructions, and should he and the Johnsons co-operate, the one controlling the bay and harbor of New York and the waters of the Hudson by means of ships and land forces; the others overrunning the valley of the Mohawk and the regions beyond Albany with savage hordes, this great central province might be wrested from the confederacy, and all intercourse broken off between the eastern and southern colonies.
Then, with a delicacy of etiquette which white pleaders do not always observe, father and son withdrew from the Council Lodge to let the jury deliberate. The old sachems were disturbed. They had been moved more than their wont. Twenty withdrew to confer. Dusk gathered deeper and deeper over the forests of the Mohawk Valley. Tawny faces came peering at the doors, waiting for the decision.
A knife is placed in her hand, while a deafening yell of triumph bursts from the excited squaws, as this their great high priestess, as they deem her, advances to the criminal. But it is not to shed the heart's blood of the Mohawk girl, but to sever the thong that bind her to the deadly stake, for which that glittering blade is drawn, and to bid her depart in peace whithersoever she would go.
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