the foe is on the watch. He lurks in the
strongholds of the mountains. He hides in the shadows of the
forest. He hovers over you like a hungry vulture ready to
pounce upon its prey. He has made a boast that he will keep his
eye upon you, from his look-outs on the hills, day and night,
till you have walked into his snare, when he will shoot down
your gay red-birds like pigeons. Englishmen, dangers thicken
round you at every step; but in the pride of your strength you
have blinded your eyes, so that you see them not. I have
brought my hunters, who are brave and trusty men, to serve you
as scouts and spies. In your front and in your rear, and on
either hand, we will scour the woods, and beat the bushes, to
stir up the lurking foe, that your gallant men fall not into
his murderous ambuscade. To us the secret places of the
wilderness are as an open book; in its depths we have made our
homes this many a year: there we can find both food and
shelter. We ask no pay, and our rifles are all our own."

To this noble and disinterested offer, Braddock returned a cold and
haughty answer.

"There is time enough," said he, "for making such arrangements;
and I have experienced troops on whom I can rely."

Stung to the quick by this uncivil and ungenerous treatment, the Black
Hunter, without another word, turned, and, with a kindling eye and
proud step, left the tent. When he told his followers of the scornful
manner in which the English general had treated their leader, and
rejected their offer of service, they staid not, but, with angry and
indignant mien, filed out of the camp, and, plunging once more into
the wilderness, left the devoted little army to march on to that
destruction to which its ill-starred commander seemed so fatally bent
on leading it. The contemptuous indifference which always marked the
demeanor of Braddock towards these rude but brave and trusty warriors
of the woods was very offensive to Washington; the more, as he knew,
that, when it came to be put to the test, these men, unskilled though
they were in the modes of civilized warfare, would be found far better
fitted to cope with the cunning and stealthy enemy they had then to
deal with, than those well-dressed, well-armed, well-drilled, but
unwieldy regulars.

After having rested a few days at the Little Meadows, the advanced
division of the army once more took up the