All of us gave ourselves over to slumber as soon as we were stretched out on the ground, for however careful a watch might have been kept, it would not have availed if the enemy was bent on surprising us. In the early light of the new day either Jacob or I went out in search of small game, for it goes without saying that we could not have brought from home a sufficient amount of food to sustain us during all the time we spent roaming to and fro between Cherry Valley and the Oriskany. If we were fortunate enough to get so much meat as would serve for one or more meals, we cooked it by digging a hole in the ground, building therein a fire, and screening the smoke as best we might with boughs and ferns. That done, we satisfied our hunger while creeping slowly onward, oftentimes forced to spend an hour or more in making a détour around some particularly dangerous locality. If, as often happened, we failed of finding game, we buckled our belts the tighter and went on, consoling ourselves with the hope that fortune would favor us before nightfall. More than once would we have run upon a party of savages--Thayendanega's scouts or hunters--had it not been for the almost excessive precautions Sergeant Corney insisted on taking, and in such case there was no other course than to hide as best we might, and wait until the enemy was pleased to move on. Fortunately we did not come face to face with the redskins, therefore a detailed story of our march would be dull reading, for it could only be the same thing over and over again until the hour arrived when we entered General Herkimer's camp on the Oriskany, receiving there such a greeting from the commander himself as caused me to believe he really needed us for some important task. "You have done well to get back alive!" he cried, with a laugh. "It is pleasing to know that lads can do what many of their elders would balk at. So Colonel Campbell was willing to give you up to me?" [Illustration: "'You have done well to get back alive!'"] "He made no protest, sir," I replied, after waiting an instant for one of my companions to act the part of spokesman. "An hundred and fifty soldiers are quartered at Cherry Valley, and they, with the many who have made of the settlement a place of refuge, are in such numbers that three would neither be needed or missed." "That would depend on what stuff the three were made, according to my way of thinking. I have some work here which you can do better than any one else of whom I know, and the only question is whether you are willing to lay your shoulders to the wheel when there's a good bit of danger in so doing?" "We have come, sir, to do whatsoever offered, an' if the task which you have in mind could be performed with safety, then we might as well have stayed at home," I replied, and Sergeant Corney nodded to show that we were of one mind.