He made coffee for them, an uncommon wilderness luxury, in which they could rarely indulge, and they were heartened and strengthened by it.
Then they went again up the valley, as beautiful as ever, with its silver river in the center, and its green mountain walls on either side.
But the beauty was for the eye only.

It did not reach the hearts of those who had seen it before.

All of the five loved the wilderness, but they felt now how tragic silence and desolation could be where human life and all the daily ways of human life had been.
It was mid-summer, but the wilderness was already reclaiming its own.
The game knew that man was gone, and it had come back into the valley.
Deer ate what had grown in the fields and gardens, and the wolves were everywhere.

The whole black tragedy was written for miles.

They were never out of sight of some trace of it, and their anger grew again as they advanced in the blackened path of the victorious Indians.
It was their purpose now to hang on the Indian flank as scouts and skirmishers, until an American army was formed for a campaign against the Iroquois, which they were sure must be conducted sooner or later.
Meanwhile they could be of great aid, gathering news of the Indian plans, and, when that army of which they dreamed should finally march, they could help it most of all by warning it of ambush, the Indian's deadliest weapon.
Everyone of the five had already perceived a fact which was manifest in all wars with the Indians along the whole border from North to South, as it steadily shifted farther West.