The American commanders at Niagara determined to clean out this nest of raiders from the Back Country, and Lieutenant Boerstler was ordered to march from Fort George with some six hundred men. Leaving Fort George secretly at night, Boerstler came to Queenston at eleven on the night of June 23. Here all Canadian soldiers free on parole were seized, to prevent word of the attack reaching the Back Country. The troops were not even permitted to light camp fire or candles. The great secrecy of the American marchers at once roused suspicion among the Canadians between Queenston and the village of St. David's that the expedition was directed against Fitzgibbons' scouts. At his home, between Queenston and St. David's, dwelt a United Empire Loyalist, James Secord, recovering from dangerous wounds received in the battle of Queenston Heights. He was too weak himself to go by night and forewarn Fitzgibbons, but his wife, Laura Ingersoll, a woman of some thirty years, was also of the old United Empire Loyalist stock. She immediately set out alone for the Back Country to warn Fitzgibbons. {361} Many and contradictory stories are told of her march. Whether she tramped two nights and two days, or only one night and one day, whether her march led her twenty or only twelve miles, matters little. She succeeded in passing the first sentry on the excuse she was going out to milk a cow, and she eluded a second by telling him she wished to visit a wounded brother, which was true. Then she struck away from the beaten path through what was known as the Black Swamp. It had rained heavily. The cedar woods were soggy with moisture, the swamp swollen, and the streams running a mill race. Through the summer heat, through the windfall, over the quaking forest bog, tramped Laura Secord. It may be supposed that the most of wild animals had been frightened from the woods by the heavy cannonading for almost a year; but the hoot of screech owl, the eldritch scream of wild cat, the far howl of the wolf pack hanging on the trail of the armies for carrion, were not sounds quieting to the nerves of a frightened woman flitting through the forest by moonlight. It was clear moonlight when she came within range of Beaver Dam and De Ceu's house. She had just emerged in an open field when she was assailed with unearthly yells, and a thousand ambushed Indians rose from the grass. [Illustration: LAURA SECORD]