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 standing about a hundred yards to the right of the trail, and looking up at the smoke which was blowing southward through the tree-tops.

His scarlet cloak was thrown back; he was a magnificent warrior, in his brilliant paint, matching the flaming autumn leaves in colour.  My Indians had not noticed him where he stood against a crimson and yellow maple bush.  I laid my rifle level and fired.  He staggered, stood a moment, turning his crested head with a bewildered air, then swayed, sank at the knee joints, dropped to them, and very slowly laid his stately length upon the moss, extending himself like one who prepared for slumber.

We ran up to where he lay with his eyes closed; he was still breathing.  A great pity for him seized me; and I seated myself on the moss beside him, staring into his pallid face.

And as I sat beside him while he was dying, he opened his eyes, and looked at me.  And I knew that he knew I had killed him.  After a few moments he died.

“Amochol!” I said under my breath.  “God alone knows why I am sorry for this dead priest.”  And as I rose and stared about me, I caught sight of two pointed ears behind a bush; then two more pricked up sharply; then the head of a wolf popped up over a fallen log.  But as I began to reload my rifle, there came a great scurrying and scattering in the thickets, and I heard the Andastes running off, leaving their dead master to me and to my people, who were now arriving.

I do not know who took his scalp; but it was taken by some Indian or Ranger who came crowding around to look down upon this painted dead man in his scarlet cloak.

“Amochol is dead,” I said to Boyd.

He looked at me with lack-lustre eyes, nodding.  We marched on along the trail by which we had arrived.

For five miles we proceeded in silence, my Indians flanking the file of riflemen.  Then Boyd gave the signal to halt, and sent forward the Sagamore, the Grey-Feather, and Tahoontowhee to inform the General that we would await the army in this place.

The Indians, so coolly taken from my command, had gone ere I came up from the rear to find what Boyd had done.

“Are you mad?” I exclaimed, losing my temper, “Do you propose to halt here at the very mouth of the hornet’s nest?”

He did not rebuke me for such gross lack of discipline and respect—­ in fact, he seemed scarcely to heed at all what I said, but seated himself at the foot of a pine tree and lit his pipe.  As I stood biting my lip and looking around at the woods encircling us, he beckoned two of his men, gave them some orders in a low voice, crossed one leg over the other, and continued to smoke the carved and painted Oneida pipe he carried in his shot-pouch.