An officer, accompanied by a scarlet-coated torch-bearer, ran up to us—a fine-looking boy, as neat and tidy, in spite of the heat of the night, as though bound for a play. By the light of the torches I could see the sight of us disgusted him.

“Speak English?” he asked. “Wrong place! You in wrong place!” He made motions, circling toward the silent hills beyond.

We ignored him.

Sponge-belly splashed out, stepping high and haughtily. Then he moved grotesquely in a circle, uttering spasmodic cries. The rest of us spurred him on with whoops, while the officer watched him helplessly.

Doc clumsily placed the neck of his rum bottle against a rock and, with a wavering tomahawk, sheared it off. Sponge-belly stopped his dance to drink; and the officer was struck with a sudden thought. He left us, running; and before our bottle was empty, he was back with another—a full one. He held it up before us. “Brandy!” he said. “You come! I give brandy!” He backed away, luring us with the bottle.

We took our packs and muskets from our canoe, overturned it, and stumbled after the officer. He led us inland, over a newly cleared road, and across steep ledges. We were a noisy and hilarious crew. Some of us, certainly, were drunk; and all of us had the air of being far gone in liquor. From the distrustful looks the officer cast back upon us, it was plain to be seen that Indians had not yet endeared themselves to their British employers.

I think we climbed a mile through the hot forest before we came to sentinels. Beyond the sentinels we saw the lights of more campfires. Between us and the fires capered the figures of dancing Indians. We had climbed high above the lake; and if my judgment was sound, we had come around to the back of the American fort at Ticonderoga, and were on a level with it.

The young officer spoke to a sentry, then handed the bottle to Sponge-belly, who stood looking at it with an air of profound bewilderment. The officer gestured toward the dancing Indians, favored us with a final contemptuous stare, and left us.

… Wonderful indeed are the ways of an eagle in the air, of a serpent upon a rock, of a ship in the midst of the sea, of a man with a maid; but these are as nothing beside the way of an Indian in the grip of rum. His dignity, judgment, honesty may vanish: his religious beliefs, respect for old age, love of ceremony may fall entirely from him: in a moment he becomes quarrelsome, insane, murderous. No sober Indian attempts to cross a drunken Indian; and no Indian nation holds any Indian accountable for what he does when drunk.