Not one of us can escape, mournfully exclaimed Hawk Eye.
You shall all escape. But the Salamanques shall roast in their own fire.
Cahoonshee wise. Learned from the white man. Tell Hawk Eye what to do?
That is what I am here for. Send the women, children and aged to the Holicot Glen, above Peanpack. Send a part of your forces on the east side of the Neversink, and the rest of them on the west side of the Delaware. When the ball of fire I have spoken of shall roll along from Mount William to the river, then let your braves advance. The Salamanques cannot escape. They will be between two fires, one on their east, and one on their west. Then let your braves advance. They will be between two fires, and your braves in their front.
It shall be as you say, replied Hawk Eye.
’Tis well. Watch for the ball of fire! and Cahoonshee passed out of sight.
At this time the angle of land lying between the Delaware and Neversink rivers on which the City of Port Jervis now stands was one tangled forest, in the centre of which was located the camping grounds of the Delawares. The banks of the river were studded with lofty white pine trees, whose tops reached far toward the Heavens. On the south side of the brook, the majestic willow towered Heavenward, with their branches bending to and taken root in the earth. Through these willows the wild grape vine had twined and laced itself, its creeping branches forming a barrier to man and beast, but fuel for the elements.
The Delawares had moved their effects, women and children to the Holicot Glen, and placed their forces on the opposite side of the two rivers, retaining sufficient numbers at their forsaken village to keep the camp fires blazing through the night.
In the meantime, the Salamanques had marshalled their forces, and when the earth became enshrouded in the mantle of night, they embarked on board of canoes and rafts and silently floated down the river, and before the break of day had safely landed north of the Spring Brook, with their women and children. A part of their warriors went by the way of the Tri-States Rock, then up the Neversink, as they supposed, in the rear of the Delawares.