"They killed Billy Gault and that other man from the old country, and they murdered Captain Hansen in his bed, and his house is all afire! Everything in the Valley is afire!" he screamed, wringing his scorched hands, "Tribes Hill is burning, Fisher's is on fire, and the Colonel and John and Harmon all murdered--all scalped and lying dead in the barn!----" "Listen to me!" I cried, shaking the wretched fellow, "when did this happen? Are Sir John's people still here? Where are they?" "It happened last night and lasted after sunrise this morning," he blubbered. "Everything is burning from Schoharie to the Nose, and they'll come back and kill the rest of us----" I flung him aside, struck spurs, and galloped for Cayadutta Lodge. Everywhere I looked I saw smoke; barns were but heaps of live coals, houses marked only by charred cellars out of which flames leaped. Yet, I saw the church still standing, and Dr. Romeyn's parsonage still intact, though all doors and windows stood wide open and bedding and broken furniture lay scattered over the grass. But Adam Fonda's house was burning and the dwelling of Major Jelles was on fire; and now I caught sight of Douw Fonda's great stone house, with its two wings and tall chimneys of hewn stone. It was not burning, but shutters hung from their hinges, window glass was shattered, doors smashed in, and all over the trampled garden and lawn lay a débris of broken furniture, tattered books, bedding, fragments of fine china and torn garments. And there, face downward on the bloody grass, lay old Douw Fonda, his aged skull split to the backbone, his scalp gone. Such a sick horror seized me that I reeled in my saddle and the world grew dark before my eyes for a moment. But my mind cleared again and my eyes, also; and I sat my horse, pistol in hand, searching the desolation about me for a sign of aught that remained alive in this awful spot. I heard no more gun-shots up the river. The silence was terrible. At length, ill with fear, I got out of my saddle and led Kaya to the shattered gate and there tied her. Then I entered that ruined mansion to search it for what I feared most horribly to discover,--searched every room, every closet, every corner from attic to cellar. And then came out and took my horse by the bridle. For there was nobody within the house, living or dead--no sign of death anywhere save there on the grass, where that poor corpse lay, a grotesque thing sprawling indecently in its blood. Then, as I stood there, a man appeared, slinking up the road. He was in his shirt sleeves, wore no hat, and his face and hair were streaked red from a wet wound over his left ear. He carried a fire-lock; and when he discovered me in my Continental uniform he swerved and shuffled toward me, making a hopeless gesture as he came on.