“But now I think their doom is sounding—­ Seneca, lying Cayuga, traitorous Onondaga, Mohawk, painted renegade—­ all are to go down into utter annihilation.  Nor is that all.  We mean to sweep their empire from end to end, burn every town, every castle, every orchard, every grain field—­ lay waste, blacken, ravage, leave nothing save wind-blown ashes of that great Confederacy, and of the vast granary which has fed the British northern armies so long.  Nothing must remain of the Long House; the Senecas shall die at the Western door; the Keepers of the Eastern door shall die.  Only the Oneida may be spared—­ as many as have remained neutral or loyal to us—­ they and such of the Tuscaroras and Lenni-Lenape as have not struck us; and the Stockbridge and White Plains tribes, and the remnants of the Mohicans.

“And that is why we have come here for riflemen, and that is why we are here to find the Sagamore, Mayaro.  For our Oneidas have told us that he knows where the castles of the Long House lie, and that he can guide our army unerringly to that dark, obscure and fearsome Catharines-town where the hag, Montour, reigns in her shaggy wilderness.”

There was a long silence; and I for one, amazed at what I had heard—­ for I had made certain that we were to have struck at Canada—­ was striving to reconcile this astounding news with all my preconceived ideas.  Yet, that is ever the way with us in the regiments; we march, not knowing whither; we camp at night not knowing why.  Unseen authority moves us, halts us; unseen powers watch us, waking and sleeping, think for us, direct our rising and our lying down, our going forth and our return—­ nay, the invisible empire envelops us utterly in sickness and in health, ruling when and how much we eat and sleep, controlling every hour and prescribing our occupation for every minute.  Only our thoughts remain free; and these, as we are not dumb, unthinking beasts, must rove afield to seek for the why and wherefore, garnering conclusions which seldom if ever are corroborated.

So I; for I had for months now made sure that our two armies in the North were to be flung pell mell on Quebec and on Niagara.  Only regarding the latter place had I nearly hit the mark; for it seemed reasonable that our army, having once swept the Long House, could scarcely halt ere we had cleaned out that rat’s nest of Indians and painted Tories which is known as Fort Niagara, and from which every dreadful raid of the destructives into Tryon County had been planned and executed.

Thinking of these things, my deep abstraction was broken by the pleasant voice of Major Lockwood.

“Mr. Boyd,” he said, “I realise now how great is your need of riflemen to fill the State’s quota.  If there is anything I or my associates can do, under the law, it shall be done; and when we are able to concentrate, and when your recruiting party arrives, I will do what I can, if permitted, to select from the dragoons of Sheldon and Moylan, and from my own regiment such men as may, by marksmanship and character, qualify for the corps d’élite.”