Usually we remained in touch with them while they ran their lines through the wilderness, but sometimes we were stealing forward, far ahead and in touch with the retreating Tory army, patiently and persistently contriving plans to get at Amochol.

But the painted hordes of Senecas enveloped the Sorcerer and his acolytes as with a living blanket; and, prowling outside their picket fires at night, not one ridged-crest did we see during those twelve days of swift pursuit.
Boyd, during the last few days, had become very silent and morose; and his men and my Indians believed that he was brooding over his failure to take the Red Priest at Catharines-town.

But my own heavy heart told me a different story; and the burden of depression which this young officer bore so silently seemed to weight me also with vague and sinister apprehensions.
I remember, just before sunset, that our small scout of ten were halted by a burnt log bridge over a sluggish inlet to a lake.

The miry trail to the Chinisee Castle led over it, swung westward along the lake, rising to a steep bluff which was gashed with a number of deep and rocky ravines.
It was plain that the retreating Tory army had passed over this bridge, and that their rearguard had set it afire.
I said to Boyd, pointing across the southern end of the lake: "From what I have read of Braddock's Field, yonder terrain most astonishingly resembles it.

What an ambuscade could Butler lay for our army yonder, within shot of this crossing!" "Pray God he lays it," said Boyd between his teeth.
"Yet, we could get at him better beyond those rocky gashes," I muttered, using my spyglass.
"Butler is there," said the Mohican, calmly.
Both Boyd and I searched the wooded bluffs in vain for any sign of life, but the Sagamore and the other Indians quietly maintained their opinion, because, they explained, though patches of wild rice grew along the shore, the wild ducks and geese had left their feeding coves and were lying half a mile out in open water.