The road appeared to end abruptly just around the curve, as though it had been opened only so far and then abandoned. This first amazed me and then alarmed me, because I knew it could not be so as I had seen on the roadbed evidences of recent and heavy travel. I stood peering down at it where it seemed to stop short against the green and tangled barrier of the woods which blocked it like a living abattis---- God! It _was_ an abattis!--a mask! As I realized this I saw a man in a strange, outlandish uniform run out from the green and living barrier, look up at me where I stood in the juniper, shout out something _in German_, and stand pointing up at me while a score of soldiers, all in this same outlandish uniform, swarmed out upon the road and started running toward where I stood. Then I came to my senses, clapped my rifle to my cheek and fired, stopping one of these strange soldiers and curing him of his running habits forever. To me arrived swiftly my Oneidas, and dropped in the juniper, kneeling and firing upon the soldiers below. Two among them fell down flat on the road, and then the others turned and fled straight into their green barrier of branches. From there they fired at us wildly, keeping up a strange, hoarse shouting. "Hessian chasseurs!" I exclaimed. "These troops can be no other than the filthy Germans hired by King George to come here and cut our throats!" "_Those men wear the uniform I saw in my vision of this place!_" whispered Thiohero, quietly reloading her rifle. "I think that this is truly your battle, my Captain." Then, as her prophecy of cannon came into my mind, there was a blinding flash from that green barrier below; a vast cloud blotted it from view; the pine beside which I stood shivered as though thunder-smitten; and the entire top of it crashed down upon us, burying us all in lashing, writhing branches. So stunned and stupefied was I that I lay for an instant without motion, my ears still deafened by that clap of thunder. But now I floundered to my feet amid the pine-top's débris; around me rose my terrified Oneidas, nearly paralyzed with fright. "Come," said I, "we should pull foot ere they blow us into pieces with their damned artillery. Thiohero, where are you?" "I come, Royaneh!" "Tahioni! Kwiyeh! Hanatoh!" I called anxiously. Then I saw them all creeping like weasels from under the green débris. "Hasten," I muttered, "for we shall have all the Iroquois in North America on our backs in another moment." As we started to retreat, the Germans emptied their muskets after us; but I did not think anybody had been hit. We now were running in single file, our rifles a-trail, Tahioni leading, and I some distance in the rear, turning my head over my shoulder from moment to moment to see if we were followed.