Indians had rushed the town and were busy tearing open the doors of the houses and setting fire to them. In vain I urged Boyd to start back, pointing out that this was no place for us to linger in, and that our army would burn this village in due time.

But he merely shrugged his shoulders and loitered about, watching his men at their destruction; and I stood by, a witness to his strange and inexplicable delay, a prey to the most poignant anxiety because the entire Tory army lay between us and our own army, and this smoke signal must draw upon us a very swarm of savages to our inevitable destruction.

At last Boyd sounded the recall on his ranger’s whistle, and ordered me to take my Indians and reconnoiter our back trail. And no sooner had I entered the woods than I saw an Indian