Towards sundown I caught my first glimpse of a hostile Iroquois war-party.  We had halted behind some rocks on a heavily timbered slope, and Mount was scrutinizing the trail below, where a little brook crossed it, flowing between mossy stones; when, without warning, a naked Mohawk stalked into the trail, sprang from rock to rock, traversing the bed of the brook like a panther, then leaped lightly into the trail again and moved on.  After him, in file, followed some thirty warriors, naked save for the clout, all oiled and painted, and armed with rifles.  One or two glanced up along our slope while passing, but a gesture from the leader hastened their steps, and more quickly than I can write it they had disappeared among the darkening shadows of the towering timber.

“Bad luck!” breathed Murphy; “’tis a rocky road to Dublin, but a shorter wan to hell!  Did you want f’r to shoot, Jack?  Look at Dave Elerson an’ th’ thrigger finger av him twitchin’ all a-thremble!  Wisha, lad! lave the red omadhouns go.  Arre you tired o’ the hair ye wear, Jack Mount?  Come on out o’ this, ye crazy divil!”

Circling the crossing-place, we swung east, then south, coming presently to a fringe of trees through which the red sunset glittered, illuminating a great stretch of swamp, river, and cleared land beyond.  “Yonder’s the foort,” whispered Murphy—­“ould Stanwix—­or Schuyler, as they call it now.  Step this way, sorr; ye can see it plain across the Mohawk shwamps.”

The red sunshine struck the three-cornered bastions of the rectangular fort; a distant bayonet caught the light and twinkled above the stockaded ditch like a slender point of flame.  Outside the works squads of troops moved, relieving the nearer posts; working details, marching to and from the sawmill, were evidently busy with the unfinished abattis; a long, low earth-work, surmounted by a stockade and a block-house, which.  Murphy said, guarded the covered way to the creek, swarmed with workmen plying pick and shovel and crowbar, while the sentries walked their beats above, watching the new road which crossed the creek and ran through the swamp to the sawmill.

“It is strange,” said Mount, “that they have not yet finished the fort.”

“It is stranger yet,” said Elerson, “that they should work so close to the forest yonder.  Look at that fatigue-party drawing logs within pistol-shot of the woods—­”

Before the rifleman could finish, a sentinel on the northwest parapet fired his musket; the entire scene changed in a twinkling; the fatigue-party scattered, dropping chains and logs; the workmen sprang out of ditch and pit, running for the stockade; a man, driving a team of horses along the new road, jumped up in his wagon and lashed his horses to a gallop across the rough meadow; and I saw the wagon swaying and bumping up the slope, followed by a squad of troops on the double.  Behind these ran a dozen men driving some frightened cattle; soldiers swarmed out on the bastions, soldiers flung open the water gates, soldiers hung over parapets, gesticulating and pointing westward.