That we had proceeded with caution you may be sure. One would as soon put their head in the lion's mouth as approach an Indian encampment without due care. Our horses had by this time been left behind, tethered in a glade and with their heads enveloped in blankets so that they should not neigh, and one by one the whole of our party, which consisted of some forty persons, crept slowly round the bluff of the mountain, leaving the encampment to what I, as a sailor, may describe as the leeward. Our plan, suggested by an old colonist who had been engaged in fighting and contending with Indians and wild animals since far back into the days when William of Orange ruled, was to creep round this bluff, to ascend it a little, and then, from the elevation, to look down upon the Indians' town and concoct our method of attack. And, to the surprise of those who understood the Indian method of warfare, this we were enabled to do without being discovered. We encountered no outposts, such as these savage warriors invariably throw out in a circle round their encampment. We saw no naked breast or plumed head of Indian sentry gleaming through the pines and sassafras, laurels and sumachs; no hideously painted face glaring at us from behind the muscadine vines or maple trees that grew in rich profusion at the mountain's base, ere its owner launched his poisoned arrow at us. The reason was, as we learnt later, that none in that encampment believed that the white avengers could travel twice as fast as they themselves had travelled. None believed there could possibly be a pale face within twenty miles of their town; and, more, there was that taking place in their midst which was enough to distract even the wary Indian from his duties of watchfulness. What was happening we ourselves saw a few moments later. CHAPTER XXVI AS FOEMEN FIGHT It was when we had climbed the spur, or bluff, one by one, crawling like Indians or snakes ourselves, and when we lay prone and gazing down upon the open space in the encampment that we saw that which astonished us so. This it was.