Stung to the quick by this uncivil and ungenerous treatment, the Black Hunter, without another word, turned, and, with a kindling eye and proud step, left the tent. When he told his followers of the scornful manner in which the English general had treated their leader, and rejected their offer of service, they staid not, but, with angry and indignant mien, filed out of the camp, and, plunging once more into the wilderness, left the devoted little army to march on to that destruction to which its ill-starred commander seemed so fatally bent on leading it. The contemptuous indifference which always marked the demeanor of Braddock towards these rude but brave and trusty warriors of the woods was very offensive to Washington; the more, as he knew, that, when it came to be put to the test, these men, unskilled though they were in the modes of civilized warfare, would be found far better fitted to cope with the cunning and stealthy enemy they had then to deal with, than those well-dressed, well-armed, well-drilled, but unwieldy regulars. After having rested a few days at the Little Meadows, the advanced division of the army once more took up the line of march; but, to Washington's disappointment, made scarcely better speed than before, although lightened of nearly all of the heavy baggage. "I found," wrote he a short time after, "that, instead of pushing on with vigor, we were halting to level every mole-hill, and erect bridges over every brook; by which means we were sometimes four days in getting twelve miles." Slowly the long and straggling lines held on their weary way, now scrambling over some rugged steep, now winding along some narrow defile, till at length the silence of that gloomy vale--the Shades of Death--was again broken by the shouts and uproar of a marching army.