“Then it is in my mind to set off at once, leaving you here. If matters on the other side of the river are as they should be, it will not cost much labor to come back for the party, while, if the danger has increased,--meaning if the enemy is attacking Forty Fort,--the women and children had better be here than there.” “You are in the right, Daniel Hinchman, and both Jonathan Ogden and I will go with you,” Giles March cried, quickly. “Master Bartlett shall stay to look after the women; he should be able to find where we have set our snares, and I am counting that by morning he will have a fresh supply of meat.” I fully expected to hear the old man make some outcry against such a plan; but he held his peace, as if well content we should do as Daniel had suggested, and there was nothing to prevent us from setting off at once. “Look well about you before venturing to cross the river,” Master Bartlett called, as we walked away, and a moment later we were stumbling along through the thicket, unable to distinguish with our eyes even the trees directly in our path. We walked in single file, each fellow striving to keep the others on a straight course, and had gone no more than half a mile from the place of refuge, when a low moan, coming from a clump of bushes directly in front of us, caused a sudden halt. There was no fear the noise could have been made by an enemy in the hope of tricking us, for, without weapons as we were, our capture or death might readily have been compassed, and I, who chanced just at that time to be in the advance, asked in a low tone: “Who is there?” “A lad by name of Samuel Rogers,” was the reply. I was overwhelmed with surprise, for he was one of the two lads who had left the stockade to go out hunting, and was supposed to have escaped by crossing the river when the Indians captured John Coburn and Oscar Stephenson. In a twinkling we were by his side, where he lay in a dense thicket, and, before making any effort to learn if he was hurt, I cried: “How did you get here? We believed that you escaped into the Pittstown stockades.” “So I did,” was the reply; “but when the men there made ready to go to Forty Fort, knowing they were all too weak to hold the place in case an attack was made, I did my best to rejoin you, and was come to the shore opposite Fort Jenkins when the retreat began. Then I kept on, thinking to cross from Wilkesbarre, where likely a canoe could be found; but stumbled upon a party of Tories near Fort Ogden, and, while taking to my heels, was shot through the leg. I gave them the slip, however, but had just come to believe I should die here like a dog, for verily I can go no farther.” “He has his musket and ammunition!” Giles March cried, joyfully, as he came upon the gun by chance. “Now there need be no fear those whom we have left behind will starve while we are away!” In few words I told Samuel why we were there, and then, as a matter of course, we set about getting him back to the cave.