Fires were still burning which showed us that the relief party had been there, and had left just before we arrived. We shouted and fired our guns, but got no response. We learned afterward that the lieutenant who had brought the supplies had waited two days for us, and then quitted the place two hours before we arrived, taking the provisions with him. He heard our guns, but thought that they were fired by Indians, and kept on his way down the river.
Our condition was terrible. We had been stumbling along, feeble, gaunt, half crazed by hunger and fatigue. But the expectation of food, the certainty that we should find plenty at the Ammonusuc, had nerved us up to the effort to reach it, and now it was gone. It had been there and was gone. We broke down completely and cried and raved. Some became insane.
I have already said that I did not like Rogers for several good reasons. But he was a man of tremendous nerve, energy, and resource. Though his great strength had been wasted by starvation, so that he could hardly walk, he still remained the leader, and said:—
"Don't lose your courage, men. I'll save all of you. It is sixty miles from here to Fort No. 4. Bring some dry logs. Hurry up. I am going to make a raft, and float down to No. 4 and fetch back food and help."
We brought logs and made a raft.
"You can find enough lily-roots and ground-nuts to keep you alive till I return. If any of you do not know how to clean and cook them, Captain Grant will show you. I promise you I will have all the food you want at this place in ten days."
STARVATION
He got on the raft with Captain Ogden, an Indian boy and Martin, who had been over the river before. They poled and paddled it to the middle of the river, and drifted down the stream out of sight.
The next day two more men crept into camp and reported that the Indians had attacked their party several days before, and had killed Lieutenant Turner of the Rangers, Lieutenant Dunbar of Gage's light infantry, and that of all their party they alone had escaped.