The wilderness grew wilder and more dense, the Mohawks entering a great gorge, forested heavily, down the center of which flowed a brook of black water.  Thickets spread everywhere, and there were extensive outcroppings of rock.  At one point rose precipices, with the stony slopes of French Mountain towering beyond.  At another point rose West Mountain, though it was not so high, but at all points nature was wild and menacing.

The air seemed to Robert to grow darker, though he was not sure whether it was due to his imagination or to the closing in of the forests and mountains.  At the same time a chill ran through his blood, a chill of alarm, and he knew instinctively that it was with good cause.

“Look at the great sachem!” suddenly exclaimed Tayoga.

Hendrik, loyal friend of the Americans and English, had reined in his horse, and his old eyes were peering into the thicket on his left, the mass of Mohawks behind him also stopping, because they knew their venerable leader would give no alarm in vain.  Tayoga, Robert, Grosvenor and the Philadelphians stopped also, their eyes riveted on Hendrik.  Robert’s heart beat hard, and millions of motes danced in the air before his eyes.

The sachem suddenly threw up one hand in warning, and with the other pulled back his horse.  The next instant a single rifle cracked in the thicket, but in a few seconds it was followed by the crashing fire of hundreds.  Many of the Mohawks fell, a terrible lane was cut through the ranks of the Colonials, and the bullets whistled about the heads of the Philadelphia troop.

“The ambush!” cried Robert.

“The ambush!” echoed the Philadelphians.

Tayoga uttered a groan.  His eyes had seen a sight they did not wish to see, however much he may have spoken of a glorious death for the old on the battlefield.  Hendrik’s horse had fallen beneath the leader, but the old chief leaped to his feet.  Before he could turn a French soldier rushed up and killed him with a bayonet.  Thus died a great and wise sachem, a devoted friend of the Americans, who had warned them in vain against marching into a trap, but who, nevertheless, in the very moment of his death, had saved them from going so completely into the trap that its last bar could close down.

A mighty wail arose from the Mohawks when they saw their venerated leader fall, but the wail merged into a fierce cry for vengeance, to which the ambushed French and Indians replied with shouts of exultation and increased their fire, every tree and bush and rock and log hiding a marksman.

“Give back!” shouted Tayoga to those around him.  “Give back for your lives!”

The Mohawks and the frontiersmen alike saw they must slip from the trap, which they had half entered, if they were not to perish as Braddock’s army had perished, and like good foresters they fell back without hesitation, pouring volley after volley into the woods and thickets where French and Indians still lay hidden.  Yet the mortality among them was terrible.  Colonel Williams noted a rising ground on their right, and led his men up the slope, but as they reached the summit he fell dead, shot through the brain.  A new and terrible fire was poured upon his troops there from the bordering forest, and, unable to withstand it, they broke and began to retreat in confusion.