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The men, greatly excited, strove to catch a glimpse of the running creature, but the bush was too dense. Suddenly a rifleman, who was leading our rapid advance, caught sight of the same Senecas who had alarmed him and his companion; and he started toward them with a savage shout, followed by a dozen others. Hanierri turned to Boyd and begged him earnestly not to permit any pursuit.
Then I turned and ran toward the fort; and in the torch-light at the gate encountered Boyd, who said to me gleefully: "It's you and your corps of guides! The express is from Clinton. Hanierri remains; the Sagamore goes with you; but the regiment is not marching yet awhile. Lord help us! Listen to those beastly Oneidas in their paint! Did you ever hear such a wolf-pack howling!
"Last night," he said, "I sent out Hanierri and Iaowania, the headquarters scouts; and I'm sorry I did, for they came in this morning with their tails between their legs, saying the forest swarmed with the Seneca scouts, and it was death to stir. "And I was that disgusted what with their cowardice and the aftermath of that headquarters punch that I bade them go paint and sing their death-songs "
The next day I was ordered to take the Indians a mile or two toward Chemung and lie there till relieved; so we went very early and remained near the creek on observation, seeing nothing, until evening, when the relief came with Hanierri and three Stockbridges.
Half an hour later he came back, followed by some score and more of men, a dozen of our own battalion, half a dozen musket-men of the 4th Pennsylvania Regiment, three others, two Indians, Hanierri, the headquarters Oneida guide, and Yoiakim, a Stockbridge. "Volunteers," he said, looking sideways at me. "I know how to take Amochol; but I must take him in my own manner."
I saw Hanierri, the Oneida guide, fling aside his blanket, strip his painted body to the beaded clout, draw himself up to his full and superb height, muttering, his eyes fixed on the hundreds of dark shapes stealing quietly among the thickets below our little hill.
But we had reached the river bank, and there the group came once more together, the ladies curious to see the batteaux arriving, loaded with valley sheep, we officers pointing out to them the canoes of our corps of Oneida guides, and Hanierri and the Reverend Mr. Kirkland reading their Testaments under the shade of the trees, gravely absorbed in God. "A good man," said I, "and brave.
As I was again on duty with Hanierri and the Dominie, I saw not Lois that day. Friday was fair and sunny, and the ground dried out. And all the morning I was with Dominie Kirkland and Hanierri, translating, transcribing, and writing out the various speeches and addresses left for me by General Sullivan.
All night long we moved on the hard and trodden trail; and toward dawn we reached a town. Reconnoitering the place, we found it utterly abandoned. If the Chinisee Castle lay beyond it, we could not determine, but Hanierri insisted that it was there. So Boyd sent back four men to Sullivan to report on what we had done; and we lay in the woods on the outskirts of the village, to wait for daylight.
But Hanierri remained obstinate, declaring that he had positive information that the Chinisee Castle lay in the direction we were taking. Boyd seemed strangely indifferent and dull, making apparently no effort to sift the matter further.
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