“You were first, and the first credit is yours, Mr. Carpenter,” said Henry sincerely. They did not tell the women and children of the fight at the oasis, but they spread the news that there would be no more pursuit, and many drooping spirits revived. They spent another day in the Great Dismal Swamp, where more lives were lost. On the day after their emergence from the marsh, Henry and his comrades killed two deer, which furnished greatly needed food, and on the day after that, excepting those who had died by the way, they reached Fort Penn, where they were received into shelter and safety. The night before the fugitives reached Fort Penn, the Iroquois began the celebration of the Thanksgiving Dance for their great victory and the many scalps taken at Wyoming. They could not recall another time when they had secured so many of these hideous trophies, and they were drunk with the joy of victory. Many of the Tories, some in their own clothes, and some painted and dressed like Indians, took part in it. According to their ancient and honored custom they held a grand council to prepare for it. All the leading chiefs were present, Sangerachte, Hiokatoo, and the others. Braxton Wyatt, Blackstaffe, and other white men were admitted. After their deliberations a great fire was built in the center of the camp, the squaws who had followed the army feeding it with brushwood until it leaped and roared and formed a great red pyramid. Then the chiefs sat down in a solemn circle at some distance, and waited. Presently the sound of a loud chant was heard, and from the farthest point of the camp emerged a long line of warriors, hundreds and hundreds of them, all painted in red and black with horrible designs. They were naked except the breechcloth and moccasins, and everyone waved aloft a tomahawk as he sang. Still singing and brandishing the tomahawks, which gleamed in the red light, the long procession entered the open space, and danced and wheeled about the great fire, the flames casting a lurid light upon faces hideous with paint or the intoxication of triumph. The glare of their black eyes was like those of Eastern eaters of hasheesh or opium, and they bounded to and fro as if their muscles were springs of steel. They sang: We have met the Bostonians [*] in battle, We slew them with our rifles and tomahawks. Few there are who escaped our warriors. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee. [* Note: All the Americans were often called Bostonians by the Indians as late as the Revolutionary War.] Mighty has been our taking of scalps, They will fill all the lodges of the Iroquois. We have burned the houses of the Bostonians. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee. The wolf will prowl in their corn-fields, The grass will grow where their blood has soaked; Their bones will lie for the buzzard to pick. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee.