So that the six miles up-hill seemed sixty, and Robert the Hunter had to confess that he was as blind as all the rest. Even Washington’s compass was of no use.
They spent the night searching for the Big Rock. When in the first gray of the morning they could see, and the Hunter knew where they were, and they found the Rock, they were a sight—muddy and wan, and as wet as muskrats. Seven men had been lost. But Washington had no notion of giving up.
He and John Davidson and Tanacharison and Scarouady talked, while the men shivered and recharged their guns with dry powder. Robert was so tired that he dozed off. But he awakened. Scarouady and Half-King were standing up, to shake hands with Washington.
“We go for a little bloodying of the hatchet, brothers,” Scarouady said, with a fierce grin, to the soldiers and the warriors. That was enough to arouse anybody.
The forest had grayed, the storm had lessened to a drizzle again and all the dripping world was shrouded in a cold mist. Half-King led out his Indians, Washington led out his Long Knife Americans; and when they all came to the place in the trail where the two Frenchmen had crossed, Guyasuta and the Buck ran ahead to back-trail again, and this time to find the French camp.
They were not gone long. The French company were hidden down at the foot of Laurel Hill, on the edge of the Great Meadows about one-half mile east of the trail from Gist’s! Wah! Yes, they had built bark lodges in a little hollow in the woods, under a ledge of rocks, and were waiting to strike Washington’s camp.
“I will summon them to surrender,” said Washington to Lieutenant Waggener. “But should they fire upon us I shall not hesitate to answer.”
Guyasuta remained to guide the Long Knives by the right; the Mingos filed off by the left; and Robert the Hunter went with the Washington Americans.
The French were astir; for within a short time the heavy air smelled of smoke. The Americans spread out and advanced more cautiously, with guns held so as to shield the locks from the wet. Guyasuta signed that the ledge of rocks was close before. Nothing could be heard from the French camp—the French had thought themselves so well hidden that they needed nobody on watch.