ar
away we heard a faint sound from the bastions. They were cheering.

Cap in hand I stood, eyes never leaving the flag; Mount uncovered,
Elerson and Murphy drew their deer-skin caps from their heads
in silence.

After a little while we caught the glimmer of steel along the forest's
edge; a patch of scarlet glowed in the fading rays of sunset. Then, out
into the open walked a red-coated officer bearing a white flag and
attended by a drummer in green and scarlet.

Far across the clearing we heard drums beating the parley; and we knew
the British were at the gates of Stanwix, and that St. Leger had
summoned the garrison to surrender.

We waited; the white flag entered the stockade gate, only to reappear
again, quickly, as though the fort's answer to the summons had been
brief and final. Scarcely had the ensign reached the forest than bang!
bang! bang! bang! echoed the muskets, and the rifles spat flame into the
deepening dusk and the dark woods rang with the war-yell of half a
thousand Indians stripped for the last battles that the Long House
should ever fight.

About ten o'clock that night we met a regiment of militia on the
Johnstown road, marching noisily north towards Whitestown, and learned
that General Herkimer's brigade was concentrating at an Oneida hamlet
called Oriska, only eight miles by the river highway from Stanwix, and a
little to the east of Oriskany creek. An officer named Van Slyck also
informed me that an Oneida interpreter had just come in, reporting St.
Leger's arrival before Stanwix, and warning Herkimer that an ambuscade
had been prepared for him should he advance to raise the siege of the
beleaguered fort.

Learning that we also had seen the enemy at Stanwix, this officer begged
us to accompany him to Oriska, where our information might prove
valuable to General Herkimer. So I and my three riflemen fell in as the
troops tramped past; and I, for one, was astonished to hear their drums
beating so loudly in the enemy's country, and to observe the careless
indiscipline in the ranks, where men talked loudly and their reckless
laughter often sounded above the steady rolling of the drums.

"Are there no officers here to cuff their ears!" muttered Mount, in
disgust.

"Bah!" sneered Elerson; "officers can't teach militia--only a thrashing
does 'em any good. After all, our people are like the British, full o'
contempt for untried enemies. Do you recall how the red-coats went
swaggering about that