Senecas, I am certain that I could have restrained the Indian. But the combination of Seneca, Erie, and Amochol prowling around our picket-line was too much for the outraged Sagamore of the Spirit Wolf. And I now comprehended it thoroughly.

As I sat thinking at our bush-hut door, the endless lines of wagons were still passing toward Otsego Lake, piled high with stores, and I saw Schott’s riflemen filing along in escort, their tow-cloth rifle-frocks wide open to their sweating chests.

Almost all the troops had already marched to the lake and had pitched tents there, while Alden’s chastened regiment was damming the waters so that when our boats were ready the dam might be broken and the high water carry our batteaux over miles of shallow water to Tioga Point, where our main army now was concentrating.