“There is a dead one on the trail a short distance below here.” “Ay, Mistress Morley was right; she gave him more lead than he could carry, and now may we count that only one of that villainous gang escaped.” As a matter of course, it was necessary I explain the meaning of my words to those who gathered around me, and, when I was come to an end of the story, Stephen Morley and Master Bartlett appeared to be more concerned in mind than before. “What is it?” I asked, thinking, mayhap, they had brought news of worse disaster. “Enough, to my thinking,” Stephen Morley replied, grimly. “You believe one of the red wolves escaped, and we may be certain that he will bring back a crowd to smoke you out of the cave. There are not so many victims to be had in the valley now that they can afford to let slip our party, and the question is, what shall be done, Simon Bartlett?” While the two men were discussing the matter, I asked Daniel Hinchman to tell me what he and his companions had done since Giles March and I left them. “Very little,” he replied, “save to learn that Colonel Dennison and some of our friends yet remain in Forty Fort. John Butler is trying to keep the word which he gave when they surrendered; but his red butchers are not inclined to be kept in leading-strings while there is yet blood to be spilled, therefore do those under Dennison fear to go out lest they be massacred, for they are the same as without weapons.” “And the Indians themselves?” I asked. “Do they remain near the fort?” “Only so many of them as John Butler’s Tories can hold there by force. So nearly as we could learn they are divided in parties of from twenty-five to fifty, travelling to and fro, destroying such dwellings as first were spared the flames, because of being at too great a distance from the stockade.” “And how many settlers yet remain alive?” I asked. “That cannot be said by me or any other. There are many who have fled; women and children have gone on foot across the mountains, or down the river, trusting to rafts or even single logs, and yet scores upon scores of them are fallen under the tomahawk of the savages or the bullets of the Tories, for it is difficult to say whether the red man or the white is inclined to show the least mercy.” “And you found no others who might be aided?” “None. All that has been done by us, in addition to gaining the information I have just given you, was a brush with half a dozen whom we met near by Fort Ogden, and to those we gave such a taste of our metal that they will never again follow any other so-called leaders who come from Johnson’s Hall. If we had fifty lads or men, Jonathan Ogden, we would drive those human wolves to take shelter in the stockade at Forty Fort, and hold them there. Now has come the time when we may take revenge, and I pray that my life be spared long enough to shoot down as many as I believe I should claim as my share.”