The rain was pouring down in torrents, the worst that could be, when we met the Half-King. We halted in the darkness of the forest while my interpreter let me know the situation of De Jumonville, which seemed to me to be well chosen as a hiding-place, but ill contrived for defence. After this we pushed on, the Indian guides being ahead. Several times they lost their way. We stumbled on in the wet woods, falling against one another, so dark was the night, and crawling under or over the rotten trees of a windfall. I was both eager and anxious, and kept on in front, or at times fell back to silence my men. We were moving so slowly that my anxiety continually increased, and I had constantly to warn my men to keep their flint-locks dry. At last, toward dawn of day, we came where we could look down on the camp. The wind being in our faces, we had smelt the smoke of their fires a quarter of a mile away, and now and then, even at this distant day, the smell of the smoke from wet wood smouldering in the rain recalls to my mind this night, a fact which appears to me singular. To my joy, the camp was silent and there were no sentinels. I halted the men, and my orders were whispered down the trail for them to scatter to the right while the Indians moved to the left. After giving time for this, I moved out alone from the shelter of the rocks and trees. As I did so, a man came from a hut and gave a great shout. At once the French were out with their arms and began to fire, but had no cover. Some of my own men were practised Indian-fighters and kept to the shelter of the trees, moving from trunk to trunk and firing very deliberately. I heard the enemy’s bullets whizz around me, and felt at once and for the first time in war the strange exhilaration of danger. A man fell at my side, and I called to those near me to keep to the trees, but did not myself fall back, feeling it well to encourage my men. For a little while the firing was hot. It lasted, however, but fifteen minutes. Then I saw an officer fall, and they gave up and cried for quarter as I ran down into their camp to stop the Indians from using their tomahawks and killing the wounded. Van Braam told me afterwards that I exposed myself needlessly, but I thought this was necessary in order to give spirit and confidence to men who were many of them new to battle. Our loss was small and that of the French great, since De Jumonville, who was in command, and ten men were killed and twenty-two taken, with some others hurt. I remember to have written my brother Jack of this little fight, that the whistle of the bullets was pleasing to me; but I was then very young, and it was, after all, but a way of saying that the sense of danger, or risk, was agreeable. On our way back through the woods I talked to La Force, who was in no wise cast down and told me that I should pay dear for my success, and how innocent they were, and a fine string of lies.