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So I began to discuss several points with my captors in a much calmer tone demonstrating that from the irregularity of their challenge we could not suppose it came from any regular picket that there were many horse-thieves and marauders about, so that it behoved travelers to be cautious that it would have been impossible to have explained our names, object, and destination in a breath, even if they had given more time for such reply: finally, making a virtue of necessity, I consented to accompany them to the regular out-post of Greenland, stipulating that I should have a horse to carry me and my saddle-bags; for my knee was still bleeding, and stiffening fast.
The little garrison, always on the alert, received intelligence early in the autumn that the Indian tribes were gathering in the north for the purpose of striking a final and fatal blow on this or some other important out-post.
As the morning dawned, we saw that the natives had thrown an out-post of sixteen men across the channel, who were watching our motions; but none showed themselves on the hills behind us, or on any part of the south shore.
During the night they remained unmolested, but next morning about break of day a soldier from an out-post came running in, and informed them that he saw a vast number of Indians, armed, and painted in the most dreadful manner, creeping among the bushes, and advancing in order to surround them.
Although in a hostile country, their camp was pitched in as careless a manner as if the foe were at a great distance; when, suddenly, the legions of the Samnites approached with so much boldness as to advance their rampart close to an out-post of the Romans.
He was admitted, and when he had told all that he had seen and heard, the Colonel bestowed on him the commission of lieutenant of the Virginia corps, which had been made vacant by the death of one of his comrades a few nights back, and ordered him to be ready with a picket guard, to march an hour earlier than usual to the fatal out-post, there to place a hat and coat on the branches, and then lie in ambush for the intruders.
Seen from a short distance off on the main track the mountains beyond had a brilliantly blue appearance, and a few hundred yards on the other side of the pass the track forked hence the name. One fork led up to Traitor's Trap, the other to the fort of Quester Creek, an out-post of United States troops for which Hunky Ben was bound with the warning that the Redskins were contemplating mischief.
The Velites were light-armed troops, employed on out-post duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati were so called because they were armed with the hasta, or spear; the Principes for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve.
There were Darnell and Wood, of New Mexico, who could literally ride any horses alive. There were Goodwin, and Buck Taylor, and Armstrong the ranger, crack shots with rifle or revolver. There was many a skilled packer who had led and guarded his trains of laden mules through the Indian-haunted country surrounding some out-post of civilization.
After all their expensive and laborious preparations, not an effort had been made to drive the invaders of the country even from their out-post at Ticonderoga. The expedition to lake Ontario had not been commenced; and no preparations had been made for that against fort Du Quêsne.
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