He thought it would render them more apt to be panic-struck when surprised, and also more likely to feel a strong revulsion of gratitude when they found that the Americans meant them well and not ill.

Taking their new allies for guides, the little body of less than two hundred men started north across the wilderness, scouts being scattered out well ahead of them, both to kill game for their subsistence and to see that their march was not discovered by any straggling Frenchman or Indian.

The first fifty miles led through tangled and pathless forest, the toil of travelling being very great.

After that the work was less difficult as they got out among the prairies, but on these great level meadows they had to take extra precautions to avoid being seen.

Once the chief guide got bewildered and lost himself; he could no longer tell the route, nor whither it was best to march.