“We learn that things hourly assume a more serious aspect with the armies. Our troops are pushing north, in large bodies, and the French are said to be reinforcing. Living as we do, out of the direct line of march, and fully thirty miles in the rear of the old battle-grounds, I should feel no apprehension, were it not for a report I hear, that the woods are full of Indians. I very well know that such a report invariably accompanies the near approach of hostilities in the frontier settlements, and is to be received with many grains of allowance; but it seems so probable the French should push their savages on this flank of our army, to annoy it on the advance, that, I confess, the rumour has some influence on my feelings. We have been fortifying still more; and I would advise you not to neglect such a precaution altogether. The Canadian Indians are said to be more subtle than our own; nor is government altogether without the apprehension that our own have been tampered with. It was said at Albany, that much French silver had been seen in the hands of the people of the Six Nations; and that even French blankets, knives, and tomahawks, were more plentiful among them than might be accounted for by the ordinary plunder of their warfare. One of your runners, the man who is called the Trackless, is said to live out of his own tribe; and such Indians are always to be suspected. Their absence is sometimes owing to reasons that are creditable; but far oftener to those that are not. It may be well to have an eye on the conduct of this man. After all, we are in the hands of a beneficent and gracious God, and we know how often his mercy has saved us, on occasions more trying than this!” This letter was read several times, among ourselves, including Mr. Traverse. As the _oi polloi_ of our party were eating out of ear-shot, and the Indians had left us, it naturally induced a conversation that turned on the risks we ran, and on the probability of Susquesus's being false. “As for the rumour that the woods are full of Indians,” the surveyor quietly observed, “it is very much as Herman Mordaunt says--there is never a blanket seen, but fame magnifies it into a whole bale. There is danger to be apprehended from savages, I will allow, but not one-half that the settlers ordinarily imagine. As for the French, they are likely to need all their savages at Ty; for, they tell me Gen. Abercrombie will go against them with three men to their one.” “With that superiority, at least,” I answered; “but, after all, would not a sagacious officer be likely to annoy his flank, in the manner here mentioned?” “We are every mile of forty to the eastward of the line of march; and why should parties keep so distant from their enemies?” “Even such a supposition would place our foes between us and our friends; no very comfortable consideration, of itself. But, what think you of this hint concerning the Onondago?”