Tahioni stretched out like a panther sunning on a log; and laid his ear flat against the earth. Seconds grew to minutes; nobody stirred; no other sound came from the westward. Presently I turned and signalled in silence; my Indians crawled noiselessly to their allotted intervals, extending our line north and south; then, trailing my rifle, I stole forward through an open forest, beneath the ancient and enormous trees of which no underbrush grew in the eternal twilight. Nothing stirred. There were no animals here, no birds, no living creature that I could hear or see,--not even an insect. Under our tread the mat of moist dead leaves gave back no sound; the silence in this dim place was absolute. We had been creeping forward for more than an hour, I think, before I discovered the first sign of man in that spectral region. I was breasting a small hillock set with tall walnut trees, in hopes of obtaining a better view ahead, and had just reached the crest, and, lying flat, was lifting my head for a cautious survey, when my eye caught a long, wide streak of sunlight ahead. My Indians, too, had seen this tell-tale evidence which indicated either a stream or a road. But we all knew it was a road. We could see the sunshine dappling it; and we crawled toward it, belly dragging, like tree-cats stalking a dappled fawn. Scarce had we come near enough to observe this road plainly, and the crushed ferns and swale grasses in the new waggon ruts, when we heard horses coming at a great distance. Down we drop, each to a tree, and lie with levelled pieces, while slop! thud! clink! come the horses, nearer, nearer; and, to my astonishment and perplexity, from the _east_, and travelling the wrong way. I cautioned my Oneidas fiercely against firing unless I so signalled them; we lay waiting in an excitement well nigh unendurable, while nearer and nearer came the leisurely sound of the advancing horses. And now we saw them!--three red-coat dragoons riding very carelessly westward on this wide, well-trodden road which now I knew must lead to Oneida Lake. I could see the British horsemen plainly. The day was hot; the sun beat down on their red jackets and helmets; they sat their saddles wearily; their faces were wet with perspiration, and they had loosened jacket and neck-cloth, and their pistols were in holster, and their guns slung upon their backs. It was plain that these troopers had no thought of precaution nor entertained any apprehension of danger on this road, which must lie in the rear of their army, and must also be their route of communication between the Lake and the Mohawk. Slap, slop, clink! they trampled past us where my Oneidas lay a-tremble like crouched cats to see the rats escaping on their runway.