During the long day’s march I lagged and watched and listened in vain for any follower along our route.  Sometimes I even played at flanker, sometimes rode far on ahead, and, at times, stuck to the Indian hour after hour, seeming not to watch him, but with every sense alert to surprise some glance, some significant movement, some cunning and treacherous signal, to convince me that the forest had eyes that marked us, and ears which heard us, and that the Siwanois knew it, and aided and abetted under our very gaze.

But I had seen him do nothing that indicated him to be in secret communication with anybody.  He marked neither tree nor stone, nor leaf nor moss, as far as I could see; dropped nothing, made no sound at all save when he gravely answered some observation that we offered.  Once, even, I found a pretext to go back on the trail, searching to find some sign he might have left behind him:  and had my journey for my pains.

Now, had this same Indian been an Iroquois I might have formed some reasonable judgment concerning his capacity for treachery; but I had seen few Delawares in my life, and had never heard them speak at all, save to boast in their cups of Uncas, Tamanund, and Miontonomoh.  As for a Siwanois Mohican, this Sagamore of the Magic Clan was the first of his tribe and ensign that I had ever beheld.  And with every motive and every interest and desire in the world to believe him honest—­ and even in my secret heart believing him to be so—­ yet I could not close eyes and ears to what so stealthily was passing in the midnight woods around me.  And truly it was duty, nor any motive baser, that set me after him that starlit night, when, as before, being on guard, he left the fire about midnight:  and I out of my blanket and after him in a trice.

The day was the 7th of July, a Wednesday, I remember, as I had writ it in my journal, my habit being to set down every evening, or as near the date as convenient, a few words which briefly recorded the day’s events.

The night before we had camped in the woods along the Catskill road leading toward Cobus-kill; this night, being fine and warm, we made open camp along a stream, within a few miles’ journey of the Middle Fort; and, soupaan being eaten, let the coals die and whiten into ashes.  This, partly because we needed not the warmth, partly from precaution.  For although on the open roads our troops in detachments were now concentrating, moving on Otsego Lake and the upper waters of the Delaware and Susquehanna, this was no friendly country, and we knew it.  So the less firelight, the snugger we might lie in case of some stray scalping party from the west or north.

Now, as I say, no sooner did the Siwanois leave his post and go a-roving than I went after him, with infinite precaution; and I flatter myself that I made no more noise on the brookside moss than the moon-cast shadow of a flying cloud.  Guy Johnson was no skilful woodsman, but his Indians were; and of them I learned my craft.  And scout detail in Morgan’s Rifles, too, was a rare school to finish any man and match him with the best who ran the woods.