On the sixth of September the evening gun sounded at Indian Hollow. On the seventh day they reached the great Seneca town of Kanadesaga, lying on both sides of Castle Creek near what is now Geneva, N. Y. Here had dwelt Old Smoke, the Indian King, and his son who married a daughter of Catherine Montour. In 1756, during the Old French War, Sir William Johnson had built a fort, or stockade, in this town, which was regularly laid out with the open square, in which the fort stood, in the center. Orchards and gardens were plentiful, especially on the north and northeast. Although Sullivan had expected to fight a battle here, and had deployed his regiments for assault, yet the town was found to be entirely deserted, except that a little white boy three years old, captured from one of the settlements, was found playing, though nearly starved. The circular mound, on which the councils of the chiefs and orators were held, still stands, a monument of a nearly vanished race. Gleefully the troops marched in and through the town, with pumpkins and squashes skewered on their bayonets. The Continentals were now in that renowned lake region of New York famous among the Indians not only for its salt springs, but for its abundance of fish and fruit, and the general fertility of the soil. The forest was still dense all around them, except the more frequent openings, but the Indian villages were numerous and with luxuriant vegetable gardens. In these, onions, peas, beans, squashes, potatoes, turnips, cabbages, cucumbers, watermelons, carrots and parsnips were plentiful, while great cornfields stretched farther off into the clearings and to the very edge of the forest, and orchards of apple, peach and mulberry trees were within easy reach. It was this great store of vegetable food found everywhere ready that decided Sullivan and his brigade commanders, after a council of war, to push on further westward, despite the very scanty supplies of meat and flour rations. So the horses and the men unable to proceed further by reason of sickness or lameness, were sent back to the fort at Tioga Point, Captain Reed of Massachusetts with fifty men forming the escort. Thence he was to return again, as we have seen, to Kanawaholla, near the present city of Elmira, with supplies for the army on its return.