Farther still to the northward stretched the Vale and silvery Sacandaga with its pretty Fish House settlement now in ashes; and Summer House Point and Fonda's Bush were but heaps of cinders, too, the brave Broadalbin yeomen prisoners, their women and children fled to Johnstown, save old man Stoner and his boys, and that Tory villain Charlie Cady who went off with Sir John.
Truly I should know something of these hills and brooks and forests that we now traversed, and of the silent, solitary roads that crept into the wilderness, penetrating to distant, lonely farms or grist mills where some hardy fellow had cleared the bush and built his cabin on the very borders of that dark and fearsome empire which we were gathering to enter and destroy.
Here it lay, close on our left flank--so close that its strange gigantic shadow fell upon us, like a vast hand, stealthy and chill.
And it was odd, but on the edges of these trackless shades, here, even with fresh evidences on every side that our own people lately passed this way--yes, even when we began to meet or overtake men of our own color--the stupendous desolation yielded nothing of its brooding mystery and dumb magnificence.
Westward, the green monotony of trees stretched boundless as an ocean, and as trackless and uncharted--gigantic forests in the depths of which twilight had brooded since first the world was made.
Here, save for the puny, man-made trail--save for the tiny scars left by his pygmy hacking at some high forest monument, all this magic shadow-land still bore the imprint of our Lord's own fingers.
The stillness and the infinite majesty, the haunting fragrance clinging to the craftsmanship of hands miraculous; all the sweet odour and untainted beauty which enveloped it in the making, and which had remained after creation's handiwork was done, seemed still to linger in this dim solitude.

And it was as though the twilight through the wooded aisles was faintly tinctured still, where the sweet-scented garments of the Lord had passed.
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.