By tracks that had been found, the enemy stole up under cover of a high bank along the creek and hid there to pick off the sentries. Very good! With his little squad Corporal Hunter crouched in the brush above the bank, and waited. Early in the morning the enemy came—six, led by a French officer.
“Fire!” Corporal Hunter suddenly ordered; the muskets flared through the dimness, and the men charged out. The enemy ran like shadows flitting. There were two dead Indians, but Robert did not pause for these. He had his eye upon the Frenchman. The Frenchman had been wounded in the leg; and when he found he could not get away he turned about and cried: “Mercy! Mercy!”
So Robert marched him to the fort.
This was a valuable capture. It might mean the fall of Fort Duquesne. Huzzah, huzzah! The Frenchman said that an officer named Ligneris commanded Fort Duquesne. The English armies in the north had cut off his provisions. His men were leaving him. Even his Indians were going home; the Delawares, Shawnees and Mingos had refused to help the French any longer, for they feared the wrath of the Long Knives; the Potawatomis and Ottawas and Hurons were tired of war—they said that now the English had been stopped, and they wished to go home for the winter. Fort Duquesne had only five or six hundred men.
Whether or not the Frenchman was lying, this put new life into the army. Snow, rain, mud and hunger mattered no longer; the time to strike had arrived; and Washington’s worn face brightened.
He and his Virginians and the Pennsylvanians were to be given the advance at last; stripped of baggage, taking only their knapsacks and blankets, twenty-five hundred picked men were to press after. That was the Washington way. Washington commanded but Colonel George Armstrong commanded the Pennsylvanians. Now the road onward had to be made in the rain and the snow and the mud. Sometimes the Pennsylvanians took the lead, and sometimes the Virginians; but with Washington encouraging, always calm, always strong, never disheartened, the Virginians finally got ahead and stayed there.
A fire-place was ordered by him, at each supply camp, to warm the General; for old Iron Head was coming in his litter. He was a man! And when the Potawatomis, Ottawas, Hurons and other of the Lake Indians at the fort learned from spies that the Long Knives of Washington were making the road, they refused to attack them. They had had experience with these soldiers who fought with their eyes open and rarely missed.
Six or seven miles of road were all that could be hewed out in a day. It was November 24 when the road was within six miles of the fort; and halt had been made until the main column came in, with Head of Iron borne in his curtained litter. And here was Scarouady, bringing Aroas, White Thunder, and other Mingos to greet Washington.
“Wah!” Scarouady said to Robert. “Is it true that Head of Iron is carried in that thing to keep him safe?”
“Yes,” said Robert.