He looked carefully round him, and on a little spot of cleared land he counted twelve Indians, some sitting, some lying full length on the thickly strewn leaves of the forest. Believing that they had already shot the sentinel, and little thinking there was any one within hearing, they were quite off their guard, and conversed aloud about their plans for the morrow.
It appeared that a council of twelve chiefs was now held, in which they gravely deliberated on the most effectual means of annoying the enemy. It was decided that the next evening forty of their warriors should be in readiness at the hour when the sentinel should be left by his comrades, and that when they had retired a few paces, an arrow should silence him for ever, and they would then rush on and massacre the guard.
This being concluded, they rose, and drawing the numerous folds of their ample robes closer round them, they marched off in Indian file through the gloomy forest, seeking some more distant spot, where the smoke of their nightly fire would not be observed by the white men.
The sentinel rose from his hiding-place and returned to his post, and taking down his hat, found that an arrow had passed clean through it. He then wrapt himself in his watch-coat, and returned immediately to the camp; and without any delay demanded to speak to the commander, saying that he had something important to communicate.
GENERAL MORGAN.
He was admitted, and when he had told all that he had seen and heard, the Colonel bestowed on him the commission of lieutenant of the Virginia corps, which had been made vacant by the death of one of his comrades a few nights back, and ordered him to be ready with a picket guard, to march an hour earlier than usual to the fatal out-post, there to place a hat and coat on the branches, and then lie in ambush for the intruders.
The following evening, according to the orders given by Colonel St. Clair, a detachment of forty riflemen, with Lieutenant Morgan at their head, marched from the camp at half past seven in the evening towards the appointed spot, and having arranged the hat and coat so as to have the appearance of a soldier standing on guard, they stole silently away and hid themselves among the bushes.
Here they lay for almost an hour before any signs of approaching Indians were heard. The night was cold and still, and the rising moon shone forth in all her beauty. The men were becoming impatient of their uncomfortable situation, for their clothes were not so well adapted to a bed of snow as the deer-skin robes of the hardy Chippewas.
“Silence!” whispered Lieutenant Morgan—“I hear the rustling of the leaves.”