It was decided, as at one voice, to anticipate the warlike designs of the eastern tribes, and carry the war, as of old, to the ancient battlefields of the Androscoggins. The scout was in possession of all their plans; they would feast their warriors upon the banks of the Saco, and winter at the Pool, where Indian and white man were alike to fall in one exterminating blow.
The more cautious chiefs proposed calling upon the colonists to aid in the expedition, but this was overruled by the sagamore, who declared the red-man able to carry on his own wars, and strike without aid for their old council-fires, their altars and their homes.
This audacity pleased the majority, which determined that the expedition should start upon the third day. They would descend the Saco—cross Casco Bay to the Kennebec, which river they would ascend till it receives the Androscoggin, and thence up the latter river till the Falls of the Pejipscot (Lewiston) should be reached—thus performing the entire route by water.
It was determined that two hundred picked warriors, headed by the sagamore, would be sufficient to effect the surprise and discomfiture of the eastern alliance, which had proposed to wait till the hunting season was finished before they started upon their warlike expedition. But the Sacos boasted that the grass never grew in the trail of their warriors, and now, headed by their brave and untiring sagamore, they were confident of success.
But, before the tribe started upon this perilous enterprise, according to their wont they consulted the prophet of the Sacos, to learn the tokens of the invisible powers, for an Indian, no more than an ancient Roman, would not impiously expose the public interests of the tribe without first learning if the gods approved.
Accordingly, the chief men resorted to his wigwam; they laid the choicest venison, fish and corn at his threshold; then they lighted a fire upon a rock near by, and having laid beside it an arrow pointing eastward, and a canoe with the paddles pointing in the same direction, they seated themselves in silence upon the ground.
It was not long before the wizard appeared, with signs of exultation. Seizing the arrow, he hurled it into the air, and seemed to urge the canoe onward; he shouted in a high key words like the following:
“High on this rock the bold eagle is screaming,
Safe in his wigwam the warrior is dreaming.
There’s a cry from the hill-top—a cry from the plain.