leading with my Indians, I said aloud, in the Iroquois tongue:

“If in this Battle of the Chemung the Mountain Snake be left writhing, yet unless we crush his head at Catharines-town, the serpent will live to strike again. For though a hundred arrows stick in the Western Serpent’s body, his poison lies in his fangs; his fangs are rooted in his head; and the head still hisses at God and man from the shaggy depths of Catharines-town. It is for us of the elect to slay him there — for us few and chosen ones honoured by this mandate from our commander. Why, then, should the thunder of Proctor’s guns arouse in us envy for those who join in battle? Let the iron guns do their part; let the men of New York, of Jersey, of Virginia, of New Hampshire, of Pennsylvania, do the great part allotted them.