There was no underbrush, no clinging sprays or fairy brambles intertwined under the solemn arches of the trees; only the immemorial strata of dead leaves spread one above another in endless coverlets of crumbling gold; only a green and knee-deep robe of moss clothing the vast bases of the living columns.

And into this enchanted green and golden dusk no sunlight penetrated, save along the thread-like roads, or where stark-naked rocks towered skyward, or where, in profound and velvet depths, crystalline streams and rivers widened between their Indian willow bottoms.  And these were always set with wild flowers, every bud and blossom gilded by the sun.

As we journeyed on, the first wayfarer we encountered after passing our outer line of pickets was an express rider from General Sullivan’s staff, one James Cook, who told us that the right division of the army, General James Clinton’s New York brigade, which was ours, was still slowly concentrating in the vicinity of Otsego Lake; that innumerable and endless difficulties in obtaining forage and provisions had delayed everything; that the main division, Sullivan’s, was now arriving at Easton and Wyoming; and that, furthermore, the enemy had become vastly agitated over these ominous preparations of ours, but still believed, from their very magnitude, that we were preparing for an advance into Canada.

“Ha-ha!” said Boyd merrily.  “So much the better, for if they continue to believe that, they will keep their cursed scalping parties snug at home.”

“No, sir,” said the express soberly.  “Brant and his Mohawks are out somewhere or other, and so is Walter Butler and his painted crew.”

“In this same district?”

“No doubt of it, sir.  Indians fired on our pickets last week.  It will go hard with the outlying farms and settlements.  Small doubt, too, that they will strike heavily and strive to draw this army from whatever plan it meditated.”

“Then,” said Boyd with a careless laugh, “it is for us to strike more heavily still and draw them with the very wind of our advance into a common vortex of destruction with the Iroquois.”

The express rode on, and Boyd, in excellent humour, continued talking to me, saying that he knew our Commander-in-Chief, and that he was an officer not to be lightly swayed or turned from the main purpose, but would hew to the line, no matter what destruction raged and flamed about him.

“No, Loskiel, they may murder and burn to right and left of us, and it may wring his heart and ours to hear the agonized appeals for aid; but if I judge our General, he will not be halted or drawn aside until the monstrous, loathesome body of this foul empire lies chopped to bits, writhing and dying in the flames of Catharines-town.”

“He must truly be a man of iron,” said I, “if we win through.”

“We will win through, Loskiel,” he said gaily, “—­ to Catharines-town or paradise—­ to hell or heaven.  And what a tale to tell our children—­ we who survive!”