Brant looked at him defiantly. "The Indians are in concert with the King, as their fathers were," said he. "We have still got the wampum belt which the King gave us, and we cannot break our word. You and your followers have joined the Boston people against your sovereign. And, although the Bostonians are resolute, the King will humble them. Your General Schuyler has been too smart for the Indians in his treaty with them. He tricked the unsuspecting braves. The Indians have made war before upon the white people when they were all united; now they are divided, and the Indians are not frightened, for they know that they can beat you."
"I want you to give up the Tories in your party," said Herkimer.
"I refuse to do so," answered Brant. "If all you want to do is to see the poor Indians, why, pray, do you bring all these white soldiers with you?"
So the conference ended, but the Indian Chief promised to meet Herkimer again next day. Meanwhile the frontiersman determined to massacre the Chief and his attendants when again they met. Four of his soldiers were chosen to do this, but when the time came they lost heart, and, overawed by the numbers of red warriors, failed to take the life of Brant, who met Herkimer at the appointed time, with five hundred warriors at his heels. The white man only had a dozen militiamen to guard him.
"I have five hundred of my best men with me, all armed and ready for battle," said the Mohawk. "You, Herkimer, are in my power, but, as we have been friends and neighbors, I will not take advantage over you." As he spoke he signalled with his hand, and with a wild, blood-curdling warwhoop, his warriors swept around the spot where stood the frontier leader.
"Now, Herkimer," said Brant imperiously, "you and your men may go."
The militiamen took the hint and turning about made off into the forest as fast as their legs would carry them.
Brant and his men withdrew from Cherry Valley and marched to meet an army under General Burgoyne, which, concentrating at Lake Champlain, was beginning an advance into the interior of the State of New York. "We cannot be beaten," said the British leader. "We will split the Colonies in two parts, and they will soon capitulate." So with confidence and zeal the great force of English regulars and hostile Indians crept down upon the American settlements. The farmers armed for the defense of their principles. They gathered in bands to stem the hostile invasion, and, if possible, to defeat the great and powerful force of the English.
On the Mohawk River the wooden palisades of Fort Stanwix offered somewhat of an obstacle to the progress of the British regulars. Brave Colonel Gansevoort, who commanded it, swore that he would perish rather than capitulate to the enemies of the American Colonists, but, as the fortifications were weak and the garrison was in peril, a body of militia from the Mohawk Valley marched to its relief. Early in August this force of armed frontiersmen—under rough old Herkimer—started through the forest to succor those who held the place, while one of Burgoyne's generals (St. Ledger) sent a considerable body of troops and Indians to meet the New York farmers. Brant was in command of the detachment of savages, and, realizing from past experience the militiamen would come rather heedlessly through the forest, he planned an ambuscade. Near a rough bridge, crossing a low, swampy piece of ground, he placed his Indians in hiding. In a wide circle they hid around the brush upon the opposite side of the bridge.