At the edge of the forest, instead of showing themselves, they turned to the left, toward the fort, and went slipping and diving through the underbrush. A few stopped and stood quietly, looking down across the cleared land toward the river. We recognized none of them. They looked to me like mixed-blood Indians from around Montreal. There were no British among them that we could see; nor could we find any white man at all—certainly nobody who bore any resemblance to Lanaudiere.

“For God’s sake,” I breathed to Doc, “don’t move! Be careful! We’ll get away all right if they don’t look up.”

Doc said nothing.

There was another burst of musket-shots: then a wailing chorus of jerky howls.

The musket-fire rattled on. It was not far from us—not as far as the fort. I suspected the Indians had caught and surrounded an American picketing party; but I could be sure of nothing except that a few of the red men still remained beneath us, on the edge of the clearing—stationed there, evidently, as a rear guard for the advance party.

The musket-fire stopped as suddenly as it had started. Then there was more yelling—prolonged, quavering, exultant Indian whoops, followed by silence. It was an uncanny silence, unbroken by musket-shot or voice, or by the song of any bird.

Usually the silence of a forest is full of sound: the almost imperceptible noises of insects: movements of small creatures among leaves: the faint murmurings of air currents among the pines. This forest was soundless. The distant Hudson, the fields, the trees, bright in the early morning sun, seemed lifeless and artificial, like a bad painting. The Indians below us were immobile—hardly to be seen against the brown and green carpet on which they crouched. We, too, were no less motionless. We moved only our eyes, and those cautiously.

Life returned to that still landscape at the sound of the clop-clop of a horse’s hoofs. The Indians within our vision moved, scratched themselves and spoke excitedly. A bluejay set up a strident squalling. Two muskets barked repeatedly from the bank of the Hudson, and their slow banging gave me a little confidence. They must, I was sure, belong to Nason or Cap or Tom.

The sound of hoofs came nearer. An Indian ran from the underbrush. Under his arm he carried a mirror framed in brown wood. The watchers came around him to peer into it. One tried to take it from him. The man who carried it laughed loudly, an empty cackle, and struck the glass with the butt of his musket. He dropped the frame and, with his fellows, scrambled on the ground for broken bits. Then he picked up the frame and hung it on a bush.