A woman whom I encountered, and who was driving geese, stopped to answer my inquiries. From her I learned that Colonel Fisher, at Caughnawaga, had received a letter from Colonel Jacob Klock six days ago, which stated that Sir John Johnson was marching on the Valley. But she assured me that this news was now entirely discredited by everybody, because on Sunday a week ago Captain Walter Vrooman, of Guilderland, had marched his company to Caughnawaga, but on arriving was told he was not needed, and so continued on to Johnstown. I do not know why all these assurances from the honest people of the Valley did not ease my mind. Around me as I rode all was sunny, still, and peaceful, yet deep in my heart always I seemed to feel the faint pulse of fear as I looked around me upon a smiling region once familiar and upon which I had not laid eyes for nearly three whole years. And my nearness to Penelope, too, so filled me with happy impatience that the last mile seemed a hundred leagues on the dusty Schenectady road. * * * * * I had just come into view of the first chimneys of Caughnawaga, and was riding by an empty waggon driven by an old man, when, very far away, I heard a gun-shot. I drew bridle sharply and asked the man in the waggon if he also had heard it; but his waggon rattled and he had not. However, he also pulled up; and we stood still, listening. Then, again, and softened by distance, came another gun-shot. The old man thought it might be some farmer emptying his piece to clean it. As he spoke, still far away along the river we heard several shots fired in rapid succession. With that, the old man fetched a yell: "Durn-ding it!" he screeched, "if Sir John's in the Valley it ain't no place for my old woman and me!" And he lashed his horses with the reins, and drove at a crazy gallop toward the distant firing. At the same moment I spurred Kaya, who bounded forward over the rise of land; and instantly I saw smoke in the sky beyond the Johnstown Road, and caught a glimpse of other fires in another direction, very near to where should stand the dwellings of Jim Davis and Sampson Sammons. And now, seated by the roadside just ahead, I saw a young man whom I knew by sight, named Abe Veeder; and I pulled in my horse and called to him. He would not move or notice me, and seemed distracted; so I spurred up to him and caught him by the shirt collar. At that he jumps up in a fright, and: "Oh, Jesus!" he bawls, "Sir John's red devils are murdering everybody from Johnstown to the River!" "Where are they?" I cried. "Answer me and compose yourself!" "Where are they?" he shrieked. "Why, they're everywhere! Lodowick Putman's house is afire and they've murdered him and Aaron. Amasa Stevens' house is burning, and he hangs naked and scalped on his garden fence!