ear was missing. There was a long scar upon his forehead. These were
like the notches on the stock of his rifle. They were a sign of the
stories of adventure to be found in that wary, watchful brain of his.

Johnson enjoyed his reports on account of their humor and color and he
describes him in a letter to Putnam as a man who "when he is much
interested, looks as if he were taking aim with his rifle." To some it
seemed that one eye of Mr. Binkus was often drawing conclusions while
the other was engaged with the no less important function of discovery.

His companion was young Jack Irons--a big lad of seventeen, who lived
in a fertile valley some fifty miles northwest of Fort Stanwix, in
Tryon County, New York. Now, in September, 1768, they were traveling
ahead of a band of Indians bent on mischief. The latter, a few days
before, had come down Lake Ontario and were out in the bush somewhere
between the lake and the new settlement in Horse Valley. Solomon
thought that they were probably Hurons, since they, being discontented
with the treaty made by the French, had again taken the war-path. This
invasion, however, was a wholly unexpected bit of audacity. They had
two captives--the wife and daughter of Colonel Hare, who had been
spending a few weeks with Major Duncan and his Fifty-Fifth Regiment, at
Oswego. The colonel had taken these ladies of his family on a hunting
trip in the bush. They had had two guides with them, one of whom was
Solomon Binkus. The men had gone out in the early evening after moose
and imprudently left the ladies in camp, where the latter had been
captured. Having returned, the scout knew that the only possible
explanation for the absence of the ladies was Indians, although no
peril could have been more unexpected. He had discovered by "the sign"
that it was a large band traveling eastward. He had set out by night
to get ahead of them while Hare and his other guide started for the
fort. Binkus knew every mile of the wilderness and had canoes hidden
near its bigger waters. He had crossed the lake on which his party had
been camping, and the swamp at the east end of it and was soon far
ahead of the marauders. A little after daylight, he had picked up the
boy, Jack Irons, at a hunting camp on Big Deer Creek, as it was then
called, and the two had set out together to warn the people in Horse
Valley, where Jack lived, and to get help for a battle with the savages.

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