’My war kettle is on the fire; my canoe is ready to put into the water; my gun is loaded; my sword is by my side; and my axe is sharpened.’

Little Abraham, sachem of the lower Mohawk valley, took the belt from him, Red Head, a chief of the Onondagas, made reply, telling him that from every castle warriors would follow him to the north.  A war dance followed, and a large body of the Six Nations were ready for the fray.

No doubt young Joseph Brant was in this great audience, listening to the speeches of his elders.  He was only thirteen years of age at the time, but the spirit of the war-path was already upon him.  The zealous appeals of the major-general must have stirred him greatly, and it may well be that this lad, with youthful frame and boyish features, here received an impulse which often sustained him in later years during his long career of active loyalty on behalf of the English cause.  As it happened, Joseph was soon to be in active service.  On August 8, 1755, Johnson’s expedition left Albany, and a week later arrived at the great carrying-place between the Hudson and Lac St Sacrement, as Lake George was then called.  At this point Fort Lyman [Footnote:  Afterwards named Fort Edward.] had been built the same summer.  Thence the major-general set out, with fifteen hundred provincials and three hundred Indians, on his journey northward.  King Hendrick, a chief of the Mohawks, led the tribesmen, and under his direction a number of braves were being tested for the first time.  One of these—­we may imagine the boy’s intense delight—­was young Joseph Brant.

On reaching Lac St Sacrement Johnson made a halt and took up a strong position on the shore.  Soon reinforcements arrived under General Phineas Lyman, his second in command.  Johnson re-named the lake.  ‘I have given it,’ he says, ’the name of Lake George, not only in honour of His Majesty, but to assert his undoubted dominion here.’

Meanwhile Baron Dieskau, the commander of the French forces, having landed at South Bay, the southern extremity of the waters of Lake Champlain, was moving down through the woods.  His army was made up of a large body of French Canadians, Indians, and regular soldiers of the regiments of La Reine and Languedoc.  He marched by way of Wood Creek, and was bent on making a vigorous attack on Fort Lyman.  But when he arrived at a point about midway between Fort Lyman and Johnson’s camp on Lake George, his Indians became unruly, declaring that they would march no farther south nor venture off the soil that belonged to France.  There was nothing for Dieskau to do but to change his plans.  Swerving in a north-westerly direction, he struck the new road that Johnson had made to the lake.  This he followed, intending to fall upon the English forces wherever he should find them.