Now this was already September, and the rains had fallen and the road had been the worst that even Robert had yet seen. The Catawbas and Cherokees had been no good at all—why, one Mingo such as Scarouady was worth a hundred of them. They did go out, a few, under Long Knife officers, and brought in news and scalps; but as a rule, they could not be believed. They even stole some of the scalps, and pretended that they had taken them. Therefore, just what the garrison at Fort Duquesne were doing nobody knew; nor how many they were.
But it was known that they did not number a great many, and that the Indians were leaving them.
Now Fort Duquesne was about fifty miles away. Major James Grant of the Highlanders, it was said, had been wishing to go on and have a look at the fort, perhaps capture some of its men in the woods and bring them back.
Colonel Bouquet finally consented. So Grant took part of his Highlanders, and part of the Royal Americans, and the Major Lewis Buckskins, and some of the Pennsylvanians and the Maryland companies.
That turned out to be a bad move. How Robert himself ever got out alive he hardly knew. For when they all had arrived in the dark of early morning on top of the hill (the same hill!) less than a mile from the fort, Major Grant sent the Virginians down to draw out the fort’s Indians and lead them back into an ambush.
Major Andrew Lewis was an old Indian fighter, but he did not relish this job. A thick fog had settled, making the darkness worse. Nobody had any idea what lay before, down there in the cleared ground where the French Indians were supposed to be camped.
All that he could do was to send scouts ahead to feel the way while he tried to follow. So once again Robert the Hunter found himself stealing forward to spy upon the enemy at Fort Duquesne.
This was blind work! Very soon he had lost the other scouts and the fort too. He could see nothing, nothing; and he blundered on, while the dense forest dripped with the fog. Then, when he was putting one hand before the other, and groping from trunk to trunk, and log to log, as he crawled, and had heard no sound of Indians his fingers fell upon a new, a fearsome object. It was fuzzily smooth, and dank, and ridged——
Ugh! It was a shaven head!
U-u-ugh! Over backward he went, with the Indian on top of him, weighting him down and clutching at his throat, and growling angrily.