Then Gist, White Thunder, Newcastle, Aroas and the Hunter all ran to rescue poor Scarouady if they could. There he was, tied to a tree. He said that the French were for killing him, but that Guyasuta had been with the Ottawas, and they refused to use the hatchet on a great chief.
Guyasuta did not turn up again. He had gone over to the French.
After this many signs of the French and Indians were seen, in shape of camp fires and of boasts written upon barked trees.
Still the column moved on, getting deeper and deeper into the wilderness. In the many rough places it reached back four miles, along the road only twelve feet wide. The soldiers from the King across the water never had seen this kind of a country—so big, so lone, so wet, so rocky, so dark with huge trees, so silent with watchful death. How they toiled and sweated, those red-coats! The mosquitoes bit them, the ticks burrowed into them, the rattlesnakes struck them, their feet blistered with walking and their hands blistered with tugging at the ropes and at the wagon and cannon wheels when the horses failed.
But at night they tried to be merry. Around their camp fires they sang a song which Robert heard often enough to remember.
To arms, to arms! My jolly grenadiers!
Hark, how the drums do roll it along!
To horse, to horse, with valiant good cheer!
We’ll meet our proud foe, before it is long.
Let not your courage fail you: