We stayed there for three hours to bury the dead, an old man and woman, a young mother, and five children, the youngest an infant not a year old.  All had been scalped; even the watch-dog lay dead near the bloody cradle.  We dug the shallow graves with difficulty, having nothing to work with save our hunting-knives and some broken dishes which we found in the house; and it was close to noon before we left the lonely flat and pushed forward through miles of stunted willow growth towards the river road which led to Johnstown.

I shall never forget Mount’s set face nor Murphy’s terrible, vacant stare as we plodded on in absolute silence.  Elerson led us on a steady trot hour after hour, till, late in the afternoon, we crossed the river road and wheeled into it exhausted.

The west was all aglow; cleared land and fences lay along the roadside; here and there houses loomed up in the red, evening light, but their inhabitants were gone, and not a sign of life remained about them save for the circling swallows whirling in and out of the blackened chimneys.

So still, so sad this solitude that the sudden chirping of a robin in the evening shadows startled us.

The sun sank behind the forest, turning the river to a bloody red; a fox yapped and yapped from a dark hill-side; the moon’s yellow light flashed out through the trees; and, with the coming of the moon, far in the wilderness the owls began and the cries of the night-hawks died away in the sky.

The first human being that we encountered was a miller riding an ancient horse towards a lane which bordered a noisy brook.

When he discovered us he whipped out a pistol and bade us stand where we were; and it took all my persuasion to convince him that we were not renegades from McCraw’s band.

We asked for news, but he had none, save that a heavy force of our soldiers was lying by the roadside some two miles below on their way to relieve Fort Stanwix.  The General, he believed, was named Arnold, and the troops were Massachusetts men; that was all he knew.

He seemed stupid or perhaps stunned, having lost three sons in a battle somewhere near Bennington, and had that morning received word of his loss.  How the battle had gone he did not know; he was on his way up the creek to lock his mill before joining the militia at Johnstown.  He was not too old to carry the musket he had carried at Braddock’s battle.  Besides, his boys were dead, and there was no one in his family except himself to help our Congress fight the red-coats.

We watched him ride off into the darkness, gray head erect, pistol shining in his hand; then moved on, searching the distance for the outpost we knew must presently hail us.  And, sure enough, from the shadow of a clump of trees came the smart challenge:  “Halt!  Who goes there?”

“Officer from Herkimer and scout of three with news for General Schuyler!” I answered.