Elerson led us on a steady
trot hour after hour, till, late in the afternoon, we crossed the river
road and wheeled into it exhausted.
The west was all aglow; cleared land and fences lay along the roadside;
here and there houses loomed up in the red, evening light, but their
inhabitants were gone, and not a sign of life remained about them save
for the circling swallows whirling in and out of the blackened chimneys.
So still, so sad this solitude that the sudden chirping of a robin in
the evening shadows startled us.
The sun sank behind the forest, turning the river to a bloody red; a fox
yapped and yapped from a dark hill-side; the moon's yellow light flashed
out through the trees; and, with the coming of the moon, far in the
wilderness the owls began and the cries of the night-hawks died away
in the sky.
The first human being that we encountered was a miller riding an ancient
horse towards a lane which bordered a noisy brook.
When he discovered us he whipped out a pistol and bade us stand where we
were; and it took all my persuasion to convince him that we were not
renegades from McCraw's band.
We asked for news, but he had none, save that a heavy force of our
soldiers was lying by the roadside some two miles below on their way to
relieve Fort Stanwix. The General, he believed, was named Arnold, and
the troops were Massachusetts men; that was all he knew.
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