And now, all along the edge of the morass where our pickets were posted, the bang! bang! bang! of musketry began.  Murphy and Elerson bounded into safety; Ned McDonald, Garrett Putnam, the coureur-de-bais, and Jack Youse went staggering and reeling into the swamp.  I attempted to follow them, but three Senecas cut me out, and, with bursting heart, I sheered off and ran parallel with them, striving to reach our lines, the sentinels firing at my pursuers and running forward to intercept them.  Yet, so intent were these Seneca bloodhounds on my destruction that they never swerved under the running fire of musketry; and I was forced out and driven into the woods again to the northwest of our lines.

Farther and farther away sounded the musketry in my ears, until the pounding pulses deadened and finally obliterated the sound.  I could no longer carry the shattered and bloody fragment of my rifle, and dropped it.  Bullet-pouch, shot-pouch, powder-horn, water-bottle, hatchet I let fall, keeping only my knife, belt, and the thin, flat wallet which contained my letters from Lois and my journal.  Even my cap I flung away, moving always forward on a dog-trot, and ever twisting my sweat-drenched head to look behind.

Several times I caught distant glimpses of my pursuers, and saw that they walked sometimes, as though exhausted.  Yet, I dared not bear to the South, not knowing how many of them had continued on westward to cut me off from a return; so I jogged on northward, my heart nigh broken with misery and foreboding, sickened to the very soul with the memory of our slaughtered men upon the knoll.  For of some thirty-odd riflemen, Indians, line soldiers, and scouts that Boyd had led out the night before, only Elerson, Murphy, McDonald, Youse, the coureur-de-bois, and I remained alive or untaken.  Boyd was a prisoner, together with Sergeant Parker; all the others were dead to a man, excepting possibly my three Indians, Mayaro, Grey-Feather, and Tahoontowhee, who Boyd had sent in to report us before we had sighted the Senecas, and who might possibly have escaped the ambuscade.

As I plodded on, I dared not let my imagination dwell on Boyd and Parker, for a dreadful instinct told me that the dead men on the knoll were better off.  Yet, I tried to remember that a red-coated officer had taken Boyd, and one of Sir John’s soldiers had captured Michael Parker.  But I could find no comfort, no hope in this thought, because Walter Butler was there, and Hiokatoo, and McDonald, and all that bloody band.  The Senecas would surely demand the prisoners.  There was not one soul to speak a word for them, unless Brant were near.  That noble and humane warrior alone could save them from the Seneca stake.  And I feared he was at the burnt bridge with his Mohawks, facing our army as he always faced it, dauntless, adroit, resourceful, and terrible.

A little stony stream ran down beside the trackless course I travelled and I seized the chance of confusing the tireless men who tracked me, and took to the stones, springing from one step to the next, taking care not to wet my moccasins, dislodge moss or lichen, or in any manner mark the stones I trod on or break or disturb the branches and leaves above me.