As I look back upon it now I wonder that we succeeded in traversing the wilderness, when Brant's force was so near at hand, without mishap; but, as it proved, we had more difficulty in persuading Jacob to accompany us than in eluding the foe whom we believed might spring upon us at any moment, and when we arrived home it was to learn that the danger to the inhabitants of the Mohawk Valley was more imminent even than when Thayendanega stalked away from the interview with General Herkimer. And this was the situation, as I afterward read it in printed letters: "A few days after this conference with General Herkimer, Brant withdrew his warriors from the Susquehanna and joined Sir John Johnson and Col. John Butler, who were collecting a large body of Tories and refugees at Oswego, preparatory to a descent upon the Mohawk and Schoharie settlements. There Guy Johnson and other officers of the British Indian Department summoned a grand council of the Six Nations. "They were invited to assemble to 'eat the flesh and drink the blood of a Bostonian'--in other words, to feast on the occasion of a proposed treaty of alliance against the patriots, whom the savages denominated 'Bostonians' for the reason that Boston was the focus of the rebellion. There was a pretty full attendance at the council; but a large portion of the sachems adhered faithfully to their covenant of neutrality made with General Schuyler, until the appeals of the British commissioners to their avarice overcame their sense of honor. "The commissioners represented the people of the king to be numerous as the forest leaves and rich in every possession, while those of the colonies were exhibited as few and poor; that the armies of the king would soon subdue the rebels, and make them still weaker and poorer; that the rum of the king was as abundant as the waters of Lake Ontario; and that if the Indians would become his allies during the war, they should never want for goods or money. "Tawdry articles, such as scarlet cloths, beads, and trinkets, were then displayed and presented to the Indians, which pleased them greatly, and they concluded an alliance by binding themselves to take up the hatchet against the patriots, and to continue their warfare until the latter were subdued. To each Indian were then presented a brass kettle, a suit of clothes, a gun, a tomahawk and scalping-knife, a piece of gold, a quantity of ammunition, and a promise of a bounty upon every scalp he should bring in. Thayendanega was thenceforth the acknowledged grand sachem of the Six Nations, and at once commenced his terrible career in the midst of our border settlements." I had no more than time to tell my mother what I had seen, when my comrades were ready to set out for Oriskany Creek, counting to make their way over much the same ground we had just traversed.