Several scouting-parties of whites were
therefore sent forward, of which the most successful was that of a young
Virginian officer, accompanied by a sergeant and five Indians. At a
little distance from the French fort, the Indians stopped to paint
themselves and practise incantations. The chief warrior of the party
then took certain charms from an otter-skin bag and tied them about the
necks of the other Indians. On that of the officer he hung the
otter-skin itself; while to the sergeant he gave a small packet of paint
from the same mystic receptacle. "He told us," reports the officer,
"that none of us could be shot, for those things would turn the balls
from us; and then shook hands with us, and told us to go and fight like
men." Thus armed against fate, they mounted the high ground afterwards
called Grant's Hill, where, covered by trees and bushes, they had a good
view of the fort, and saw plainly that the reports of the French force
were greatly exaggerated.[652]
[Footnote 652: _Journal of a Reconnoitring Party, Aug. 1758._ The writer
seems to have been Ensign Chew, of Washington's regiment.]
Meanwhile Bouquet's men pushed on the heavy work of road-making up the
main range of the Alleghanies, and, what proved far worse, the parallel
mountain ridge of Laurel Hill, hewing, digging, blasting, laying
fascines and gabions to support the track along the sides of steep
declivities, or worming their way like moles through the jungle of swamp
and forest.
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