"How did you get through it, Ben?"
"All right, but a few cuts. I hope I don't look as villanous as you or Amos."
"I d-don't know how I look. B-But if I saw you or Edmund round my place looking as you d-do now, I'd shoot you at sight."
Rogers ordered us to set fire to all the houses except those which were storehouses for corn. One house was a mass-house with pictures hanging up inside. We found some silver cups and plates in it, and a silver image some ten inches high. In the other houses we found many things which they had carried off from the settlements.
Most of the Rangers had lost relatives and friends in these Indian fights, and were examining the scalps carefully. McKinstry was looking them over with an intense, eager air. Seeing me, he said: "It's a foolish search. Thirty years have passed since they killed my sweetheart and ruined my life. I was looking for a lock of hair like this."
He pulled a little pouch from his breast, opened it, and unfolding some fine cloth, showed me a lock of golden hair.
"The Indians surprised the garrison house where she lived and killed all but her. We got word of it soon. We started out with a large party and pursued them. We followed them day and night, and as they were being overtaken they killed and scalped her. I found her dead body on the ground, and from that day to this I have sought revenge. Last night was the happiest I have had for years. The tribe that killed her is wiped out, and I killed six of them myself."
Rogers had been questioning some of the prisoners. He turned to us and said:—
"Hurry up, boys; we must get out of this place quick. There's no time to go back after our packs. There's a party of three hundred French and Indians four miles below, on the St. Lawrence, looking for us, and two hundred Frenchmen and sixteen Indians went to Wigwam Martinac a few days ago, expecting we would attack that place. They will all be after us soon. Load yourselves up with corn from the corn houses. Take all you can, for we shall have little else to live upon, as the game is scanty in the country through which we shall pass."
THE VILLAGE IN FLAMES