turing too far, when looking up, I espied a very large Indian at some distance from me. At the instant I beheld him I dropped my fishing rod, and left my fish and being unarmed, I became very much frightened and "heeled it for life" until I reached the camp.

Being young, strong and active, I soon left him in the distance and gained the encampment. There was a scouting party despatched immediately, but it returned without beholding or capturing him. He thinking perhaps as I did, that it was most safe to be off: I being unarmed am free to confess, I did not wait to see whether he was armed or not. Some of the officers and myself went with the scouting party as far as to where I beheld him, and then I recovered my fishing tackle and the fish I had caught. In our passage thither we found that I had leaped over lying trees four and five feet high, bounding from twelve to eighteen feet at a bound. In proof of this, I observe that after the revolutionary war was ended, I have often jumped a stake and ridered fence six feet high in harvest times with a sickle in my hand, and at a running jump I could clear an eighteen or twenty foot pole with all ease. This may look full as a statement, but it must stand as truth with those acquainted with jumping, when I state that I could at a standing jump on a floor, clear a ten foot pole at any time, standing with my toes to it at one end, and clearing it with my heels at the other. When running from the Indian I can safely assert that I jumped from two to four feet higher, and bounded farther by several feet than I ever knew myself to do either before or since.

It had been the delight of many of the officers at various military posts before this happened, to start me as a fox. After I would start off to personate Reynard, they would send out a dozen or two other soldiers to personate hounds in the chase. I was swift of foot and could always elude my pursuers, and could return to camp before them and without being caught. I was always called the young quaker, owing to my saying THEE and THOU. Oftentimes when the officers wanted me

to gratify them in bearing a part in fox and hound sport, they would call out "Quaker," "Quaker;" I would answer, what does thee want? They would then sing out "Thee and thou, the quaker's brown cow,” (I thought it quite a shame to say you to any person, it was all thee and thou with me, instead of sir,) we want you to be fox, for we have some fast hounds to send out in pursuit to day. I knew I could run fast and was therefore ready generally to turn Reynard.

Indians are full of stratagem, the point where danger may be most apprehended is not the point chosen by Indians at which to attack their enemies. They are extremely wary as well as ingenuously cunning. During the revolutionary war many were the instances of their being found lurking near to the piquets or outposts. In some of their designs thus cunningly devised they have succeeded; in many others however, they were completely frustrated.

"In the year 1779, when the war with America was conducted with great spirit upon that continent, a division of the English army was encamped on the banks of a river, and in a position so favored by nature, that it was difficult for any military art to surprise it. War in America was at times in the most wilderness parts, rather a species of hunting than a regular campaign. "If you fight with art," said Washington to his soldiers " you are sure to be defeated. Acquire discipline enough for retreat and the uniformity of combined attack, and your country will prove the best of engineers." So true was the maxim of General Washington, "that the English soldiers had to contend with little else." In consequence of the British having brought hordes of Indians to their aid as allies, the Americans with a retaliatory spirit "had incorporated the Indians into their ranks, and had made them useful in a species of war to which their habits of life had peculiarly fitted them. They sallied out of their impenetrable forests and jungles, and with their arrows and tomahawks committed daily waste upon the British army,-surprising their sentinels, cut

ting off their stragglers, and even when the alarm was given and pursuit commenced, they fled with a swiftness that the speed of cavalry could not overtake, into rocks and fastnesses whither it was dangerous to pursue them. In order to limit as far as possible this species of war, in which there was so little honor, it was the custom with every regiment to extend its outpost to a great distance beyond the encampments; to station sentinels some miles in the woods, and to keep a constant guard around the main body.

A regiment of foot was at this time stationed upon the confines of a boundless Savannah. Its particular office was to guard every avenue of approach to the main body; the sentinels whose posts penetrated into the woods were supplied from its ranks, and the service of this regiment was thus more hazardous than that of any other. Its loss was likewise great. The sentinels were perpetually surprised upon their posts by the Indians, and were borne off their station without communicating any alarm or being heard of after. Not a trace was left of the manner in which they had been conveyed away, except that, upon one or two occasions a few drops of blood had appeared upon the leaves that covered the ground. Many imputed this unaccountable disappearance to treachery, and suggested as an unanswerable argument, that the men thus surprised might at least have fired their muskets, and communicated the alarm to the contiguous posts. Others who could not be brought to rank it as treachery, were content to consider it as a mystery which time would unravel.

One morning, the sentinels having been stationed as usual over night, the guard went at sun-rise to relieve a post which extended a considerable distance into the wood. The sentinel was gone! The surprise was great; but the circumstance had occurred before. They left another man and departed, wishing him better luck. "You need not be afraid" said the man with warmth, "I shall not desert!" The relief company returned to the guard-house. The sentinels were replaced every

four hours, and at the appointed time, the guard inarched to relieve the post. To their inexpressible astonishment the man was gone! They searched round the spot, but no traces could be found of his disappearance. It was now necessary that the station from a stronger motive than ever, should not remain unoccupied; they were compelled to leave another man, and returned to the guard-house. The superstition of the soldiers was awakened, and terror ran through the regiment. The Colonel being apprized of the occurrence, signified his intention to accompany the guard when they relieved the sentinel they had left. At the appointed time, they all marched together; and again, to their unutterable wonder, they found the post vacant, and the man gone!

Under these circumstances, the Colonel hesitated whether he should station a whole company on the spot, or whether he should again submit the post to a single sentinel. The course of this repeated disappearance of men, whose courage and honesty were never suspected, must be discovered; and it seemed not likely that this discovery could be obtained by persisting in the old method. Three brave men were now lost to the regiment, and to assign the post to a fourth, seemed nothing less than giving him up to destruction. The poor fellow whose turn it was to take the station, though a man in other respects of incomparable resolution, trembled from head to foot. "I must do my duty" said he to the officer, "I know that; but I should like to lose my life with more credit." "I will leave no man" said the Colonel "against his will."

A man immediately stepped from the ranks, and desired to take the post. Every mouth commended his resolution. "I will not be taken alive" said he "and you shall hear of me on the least alarm. At all events I will fire my piece if I hear the least noise. If a bird chatters, or a leaf falls, you shall hear my musket. You may be alarmed when nothing is the matter, but you must take the chance as the condition of the discovery. The Colonel applauded his courage, and told him he

would be right to fire upon the least noise which was ambiguous. His comrades shook hands with him, and left him with a melancholy foreboding. The company marched back, and awaited the event in the guard-house.

An hour had elapsed, and every ear was upon the rack for the discharge of the musket, when upon a sudden the report was heard. The guard immediately marched, accompanied as before by the Colonel, and some of the most experienced officers of the regiment. As they approached the post, they saw the man advancing towards them, dragging another man on the ground by the hair of his head. When they came up with him, he appeared to be an Indian whom he had shot. An explanation was immediately required.

"I told your honor" said the man, "I should fire if I heard the least noise. The resolution I had taken has saved my life. I had not been long on my post when I heard a rustling at some short distance; I looked, and saw an American hog, such as are common in the woods, crawling along the ground, and seemingly looking for nuts under the trees and amongst the leaves. As these animals are so very common, I ceased to consider it for some minutes; but being on the constant alarm and expectation of attack, and scarcely knowing what was to be considered a real cause of apprehension, I kept my eyes vigilantly fixed upon it, and marked its progress among the trees: still there was no need to give the alarm, and my thoughts were directed to danger from another quarter. It struck me, however, as somewhat singular, to see this animal making, by a circuitous passage, for a thick coppice immediately behind my post. I therefore kept my eye more constantly fixed upon it, and as it was now within a few yards of the coppice, I hesitated whether I should not fire. My comrades, thought I, will laugh at me for alarming them by shooting a pig! I had almost resolved to let it alone, when, just as it approached the thicket, I thought I observed it give an unusual spring. I no longer hesitated, I took my aim; discharged my piece; and the animal