He says that Indian scouts were every hour watching, from mountain crags and forest thickets, the advance of the army. Every day swift runners came to the fort with their report. The French commandant was kept as intimately acquainted with the condition of the army, and its position, as Braddock could have been himself. These warriors, intelligent men, with established military principles, loudly derided the folly of Braddock, declaring that he was nothing but a fool. As they described his straggling and defenceless line, its utter exposure, the course which they knew he must pursue, and the ambush they were preparing for his destruction, they would burst into boisterous laughter, saying, “We will shoot ’em all down, same as one pigeon.” It is a great mistake to imagine that men must be simpletons because they can neither read nor write. It is said that Charlemagne could not even write his own name. And many of the most illustrious warriors of ancient days had no acquaintance whatever with books. No one can read, with an impartial spirit, the history of the Indian wars, without admitting that there were in many cases, Indian chiefs who entirely outgeneralled their English antagonists. The scene of events at the fort is very vividly presented by Colonel Smith. Early in the morning of the day in which the attack was to be made, there was great and joyous commotion in and around the fort. The Indians, some six or seven hundred in number, were greatly elated. They seemed to be as sure of victory then as they were after it had been attained. There was hurrying to and fro, examining the muskets, filling the powder-horns from open kegs of powder, storing away bullets in their leathern pouches, and hurrying off in small bands, in single file, through the trails of the forest. About an equal number of French troops accompanied the Indians. Soon all were gone, save the small garrison left in charge. Slowly and silently the hours of the long summer day passed, when late in the afternoon the triumphant shouts of fleet-footed runners were heard in the forest, announcing the tidings of the great victory--tidings which awoke the garrison to enthusiasm, but which filled the heart of Colonel Smith with _dismay_. They brought the intelligence that the English were huddled together and surrounded, in utter dismay and confusion, in a narrow ravine, from which escape was almost impossible. The Indians, from their concealments, were shooting them down as fast as they could load and fire. They said that before sundown all would be killed. The whoops or yells of the savages had various significations. There was the war-whoop, with which their fierce natures were roused to the attack. There was the cry of retreat, at whose signal all seemed instantaneously to vanish. And there was the exultant, triumphant “scalp-halloo,” with which they made the forests resound, when they returned to the camp, dangling the gory trophies of victory.[39]