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Updated: June 10, 2025
"You are right in your surmise that Jumonville came in the night," he said. "He wore boots, and here are the imprints of his heels. I think he is not far away now. Watch well, Dagaeoga, while I lie on the earth and listen." Ear to the ground, the Onondaga announced that he could hear men on both sides of them moving.
The French commander in the valley of the Ohio, M. de Contrecoeur, was occupied with preparations for defence, when he learned that a considerable body of English troops were marching against him under the orders of Colonel Washington. He immediately despatched M. de Jumonville with thirty men to summon the English to retire and to evacuate French territory.
But before delivering the summons Jumonville was ordered to send two couriers back with all speed to Fort Duquesne to inform the commandant that he had found the English, and to acquaint him when he intended to communicate with them.
Jumonville, who had spoken but little, threw a fresh stick on the fire and looked at the black wall of circling forest. "I can never get quite used to it," he said. "The wilderness is so immense, so menacing that when I am in it at night a little shiver will come now and then. I suppose our remote ancestors who lived in caves must have had fear at their elbows all their lives."
"Jumonville is still giving orders, and sending the canoes somewhat at random. He is not the leader Sharp Sword would be in an emergency, nor anything like it. He is having his own boat paddled about uncertainly. I can hear the paddles of the four men in it. Now and then he speaks angrily, too. He is upbraiding those who are not to blame. How are you feeling now, Dagaeoga?
"Chance brings about strange meetings between us, Mr. Lennox," said De Courcelles. "It gives me pleasure to note that you have not yet taken any personal harm from our siege." "Nor you nor Monsieur de Jumonville, from our successful defense," replied Robert in the same spirit. "You have us there.
The prediction of the Sieur Gauthier was repeated and retold as a strangely true tale; it passed into the traditions of the people, and lingered in their memory generations after the festival of Belmont was utterly forgotten. When the great revolt took place in the English Colonies, the death of the gallant Jumonville de Villiers was neither forgotten nor forgiven by New France.
The whole expedition was rash in the extreme. When Washington left Will's Creek he was aware that he was going to meet a force of a thousand men with only a hundred and fifty raw recruits at his back. In the same spirit he pushed on; and after the Jumonville affair, although he knew that the wilderness about him was swarming with enemies, he still struggled forward.
"Men like De Courcelles, Jumonville and Tandakora will soon bring order out of all that tumult, and they'll be looking for those who set the torch. The snow is coming down heavier and heavier and it hides our flight, although it is not able to put out the fires. You're right, Tayoga, about Tododaho pouring his favor upon us."
Their own canoes leaped forward, and, as the arrow into which they were formed shot past the island, the three hidden in its heart drew the deep, long breaths of those who have suddenly passed from death to life. "We won't stop 'em!" said Robert in a whimsical tone. "Speed ye, Tandakora, speed ye! Speed ye, De Courcelles and De Jumonville of treacherous memory!
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