They would not yield, they would listen to no terms, they would fight to the bitter end.

Yet they had no poet to keep up their heart, and sing the marvel of their magnificent patriotism.
At the end of five-and-twenty years of hard fighting, the surviving 300 naked patriots were still defiant, still persistent, still efficacious with their rude weapons, and the Governor and the 40,000 knew not which way to turn, nor what to do.
Then the Bricklayer--that wonderful man--proposed to go out into the wilderness, with no weapon but his tongue, and no protection but his honest eye and his humane heart; and track those embittered savages to their lairs in the gloomy forests and among the mountain snows.
Naturally, he was considered a crank.

But he was not quite that.

In fact, he was a good way short of that.

He was building upon his long and intimate knowledge of the native character.