"Then the redmen are glad to meet their brothers. The redmen were afraid the sleeping ones were French."
"Who are you?" asked Henry.
"Arrow Head, of the Miamis. We have joined the great English warrior Johnson, to fight the French. Let us be friends."
A few words more followed, and Barringford told the Indians to come forward. At this eight redmen advanced to the camp-fire, on which the boys threw some extra brushwood, so that they might see the new arrivals. The Indians had slung their weapons over their shoulders, as a sign of peace, and our friends did likewise.
Schnitzer had met Arrow Head before, and said he would vouch for it that the warrior was all right. From the under chief it was learned that General Johnson, with seven hundred Indians, had already marched to meet General Prideaux and that the camp of the army was some forty miles distant, up the river. Arrow Head had been left behind to "drum up" a few stragglers, but was now ready to go forward with the redmen under him.
"The war talk at Canajoharie castle was a great one," said the under warrior. "Your General Johnson has treated us like brothers, and we will fight for him to the bitter end. We have sung our war songs and put on our war paints, and no French soldiers shall stand up against us. Henceforth the English shall be our brothers for evermore."
"Yah, now you vos talkin' common sense," put in Schnitzer. "Ven you fight mid dem Frenchers you vos all fools—for dem Frenchers vill pe licked chust so sure as Henry Hudson discovered New York. I peen a Dutch prophet, und I know," and he said this so earnestly that Arrow Head was duly impressed. Schnitzer, who afterward made himself famous as a pioneer in Ohio, could do a few sleight of hand tricks, and because of these tricks many of the redmen considered him something of a wizard.
All rested until daybreak and then, after a hasty breakfast, in which the Indians joined the whites, the march forward was resumed. Soon it began to rain, but the drops did not come down heavily, and Barringford said the storm had shifted to the westward. In this he was right for by noon the sun was shining as brightly as ever.
As they trudged along, Dave and Henry questioned Arrow Head concerning the French Indians and their captives, and about Jean Bevoir. They could, however, get little satisfaction, excepting that Arrow Head had heard that all the captives had been removed to the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and that a general movement toward Montreal and Quebec was contemplated.
While our friends were trudging through the woods northward, General Prideaux had gone to Schenectady. He had with him his own division of the army consisting of two regiments of English soldiers and twenty-six hundred Americans, principally from New York, although with the New Yorkers were a good sprinkling of rangers from Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, men who roamed from one colony to another, looking for a chance to better themselves and ever ready for a fight, be it with the French or the Indians.