It was now twilight.
I begged some mounted militia-men to take me and my Oneidas up behind them; and they were obliging enough to do so; and we jogged away into the rosy dusk of an August evening.
Almost immediately I saw the Flockey ahead, and Adam Crysler's house on the bank; and on the lawn in front of it I saw McDonald's grotesque legion drawn up in line of battle.
As I came up our cavalry was forming to charge; Lieutenant Wirt had just turned in his saddle to speak to me, when one of the outlaws ran out to the edge of the lawn and called across the road to Wirt that he should never live to marry Angelica Vrooman,[41] but would die a dog's death as he deserved.
As the cavalry charged, Wirt rode directly at this man, who coolly shot him out of his saddle.
I saw and recognized the outlaw, who was a Tory named Shafer.
As Wirt fell to the grass, stone dead, his horse knocked down Shafer. The Tory got up, streaming with blood but not badly hurt, and, clubbing his piece, attempted to dash out Wirt's dead brains; but Trooper Rose swung his horse violently against Shafer, sabred him, and, in turn, fell from his own saddle, fatally wounded.
Another trooper dismounted to pick up poor Rose, who was in a bad way, but one of McDonald's painted Tories fired on them and both fell.
I fired at this man and wounded him, and Tahioni chased him, caught him, and slew him by the fence.
Then, above the turmoil of horses and gun-shots, the Oneida's terrific scalp-yell rang out in the deepening dusk; and at that dread panther-cry a panic seemed to seize McDonald's men, for their grotesque riders suddenly whirled their horses and stampeded ventre-à-terre, riding westward like damned men; and I saw their Highlanders and Chasseurs and renegade Greens break and scatter into the forest on every side, melting away into the night before our eyes.