Fortunately Lafayette had a head which grew steadier in a crisis. Sending his aides flying in all directions, he found that while the way to Valley Forge was indeed cut off, one ford still remained open, though the British were rapidly advancing upon it. He quickly placed a small number of his men near the church, where the stone wall of the graveyard would serve as breastworks, stationed a few more near the woods as if they were heads of columns just appearing, and ordered [Pg 107]all the rest to drop quietly down the steep side of the hill until they were out of sight, and then hurry to the ford. The attention of the enemy was held long enough by the decoy troops to enable the others to reach the ford or swim across, their heads dotting the water "like the corks of a floating seine," and Lafayette, who had stayed behind, brought the last of his men to safety just as two columns of the British, marching up two sides of Barren Hill, met each other, face to face, at the top. Lafayette, on the opposite bank of the river, prepared for defense, but the British were too disgusted to follow. The real encounter of the serio-comic affair took place between the most gaudily dressed bands of fighters in the whole Revolution, Lafayette's Iroquois in their war regalia and Clinton's advance-guard of Hessian cavalry. As the latter advanced, the Indians rose from their hiding-places uttering their piercing war-whoops. The horses of the troopers were terrified by the brilliant, shrieking creatures, and bolted. But terror was not all upon one side. The Indians had never seen men like these Hessians, with their huge bearskin shakos and fierce dyed mustaches. They in their turn were seized with panic and rushed away, fleeing incontinently from "bad medicine."