to watch on
the front and flanks of the army against Indian ambush, knowing how
much it was needed. Braddock laughed and sneered. He said that an
army such as his did not need to fear a few wandering Indians, and, in
any event, it had eyes of its own to watch for itself. Black Rifle
said he doubted it, that soldiers in the woods could seldom see
anything but themselves. There was blame on both sides, but men like
General Braddock and Black Rifle can't understand each other, they'll
never understand each other, and, hot with wrath Black Rifle has taken
his band and gone into the woods. Nor will he come back, and we need
him! I tell you, Robert, we need him! We need him!"

"It is bad," said Tayoga. "An army can never have too many eyes."

Robert was deeply disappointed. He regretted not only the loss of
Black Rifle and his men, but the further evidence of an unyielding
temperament on the part of their commander. His own mind however so
ready to comprehend the mind of others, could understand Braddock's
point of view. To the general Black Rifle and his men were mere woods
rovers, savages themselves in everything except race, and the army
that he led was invincible.

"We'll have to make the best of it," he said.

"They've gone and they're a great loss, but the rest of us will try to
do the work they would have done."

"That is so," said Tayoga, gravely.

At last the army moved proudly away into the wilderness. Hundreds of
axmen, going ahead, cut a road twelve feet wide, along which cavalry,
infantry, artillery and wagons and pack horses stretched for
miles. The weather was beautiful, the forest was both beautiful and
grand, and to most of the Englishmen and Virginians the march appealed
as a great and romantic adventure. The trees were in the tender green
leafage of early May, and their solid expanse stretched away hundreds
and thousands of miles into the unknown west. Early wild flowers, a
shy pink or a modest blue, bloomed in the grass. Deer started from
their coverts, crashed through the thickets, and the sky darkened with
the swarms of wild fowl flying north. Birds of brilliant plumage
flashed among the leaves and often chattered overhead, heedless of the
passing army. Now and then the soldiers sang, and the song passed from
the head of the column along its rippling red, yellow and brown length
of four miles.

It was a cheerful army, more it was a gay army, enjoying the
wilderness which it was seeing at one of