The distant forest was the front.

To it went the new bands of fighters.

From it came the caissons for food, that ammunition of the frontier; messengers bringing tidings of defeat or victory; sometimes men groaning on their litters from the twisting and crushing and breaking inflicted on them by the calm, ruthless enemy; once a dead man bearing still on his chest the mark of the tree that had killed him.

Here at headquarters sat the general, map in hand, issuing his orders, directing his forces.
And out of the forest came mystery.

Hunters brought deer on sledges.
Indians, observant and grave, swung silently across the reaches on their snowshoes, and silently back again carrying their meager purchases.