But Perry did not see these brigs take the water. He had learned that Commodore Chauncey’s sailors and the American soldiers were to attack Fort George, near the mouth of the Niagara River. Getting into a row-boat with four men, Captain Perry started for Buffalo on the night of the 23d. There was a head-wind all night, but Perry reached Buffalo the next evening, passing down the river within musket-shot of the enemy. Perry reached a village near Grand Island, where he proposed to go ahead on foot, until his sailors captured a horse on the public common--“an old pacing one that could not run away, and brought him in, rigged a rope from the boat into a bridle, and borrowed a saddle without either stirrup, girth, or crupper.” On this Perry mounted, and holding fast by the horse’s mane, ambled into the camp at the foot of the river. In the attack on Fort George, on the morning of May 27, 1813, Perry was the most active man in the fleet, rowing hither and yon in directing the landing parties, and constantly exposing himself to the fire of the enemy. But the result of the battle was the complete success of the Americans, and the British abandoned the whole Niagara River. The advantage of this success to Perry was at once manifest, for the route from Shajackuda Creek up the Niagara River was opened, and the vessels lying there, including the _Caledonia_ captured by the brilliant dash of Elliott, were released. Loading this little squadron of five vessels with all the stores at Black Rock, Perry started on the morning of June 6, 1813, to “track” them up the Niagara to Lake Erie. “Tracking” is a kind of work not unfamiliar even now to canal and river sailors, and lake sailors in those days knew all about it. A long line was stretched out from each vessel along the shore, and then sailors and soldiers clapped on and walked away with the rope. There were a few yoke of oxen to help, but they had a current of from five to seven miles an hour to overcome, and they were six days getting their vessels out of the river. Sailing from Buffalo on the 13th, they dodged the enemy’s fleet of five vessels, mounting forty-four guns, that hove in sight just as Erie was reached, and so made their port in safety, bringing a cargo that was indispensable.