Fortunately we did not come face to face with the redskins, therefore a detailed story of our march would be dull reading, for it could only be the same thing over and over again until the hour arrived when we entered General Herkimer's camp on the Oriskany, receiving there such a greeting from the commander himself as caused me to believe he really needed us for some important task.
"You have done well to get back alive!" he cried, with a laugh. "It is pleasing to know that lads can do what many of their elders would balk at. So Colonel Campbell was willing to give you up to me?"
[Illustration: "'You have done well to get back alive!'">[
"He made no protest, sir," I replied, after waiting an instant for one of my companions to act the part of spokesman. "An hundred and fifty soldiers are quartered at Cherry Valley, and they, with the many who have made of the settlement a place of refuge, are in such numbers that three would neither be needed or missed."
"That would depend on what stuff the three were made, according to my way of thinking. I have some work here which you can do better than any one else of whom I know, and the only question is whether you are willing to lay your shoulders to the wheel when there's a good bit of danger in so doing?" "We have come, sir, to do whatsoever offered, an' if the task which you have in mind could be performed with safety, then we might as well have stayed at home," I replied, and Sergeant Corney nodded to show that we were of one mind.
"Since I last saw you the enemy has gathered in strong force about Fort Schuyler, and it is necessary we get some word to the commandant, who is, in fact, besieged."
"That shouldn't be sich a terrible hard job, sir," Sergeant Corney said, speaking for the first time since we were received by the general.
"True for you, but the reason why I haven't sent any of my own men before this is, that if the messenger should be discovered while trying to get inside, Joseph Brant would know for a certainty that we on the outside believed the garrison to be hard pressed, which would probably work no end of mischief, for at present the enemy has every reason to suppose Colonel Gansevoort has all the men and stores he can possibly need."
"Why should he think differently if one of us was captured while tryin' to communicate with the besieged, sir?" Sergeant Corney asked, curiously.
"Because you have every reason for going there, even though you had never heard that the fort was invested."