Now, you and I know well what alone would do that at such a time." "It was done by the flash from a big musket, such a musket as those French Indians carry." "It could have been nothing else.

I think if we go still farther around the curve we will find other bushes behind which other warriors kneeled and fired, and maybe other leaves scorched by the flash of big muskets." A hundred yards more and they saw that for which they looked.

The signs were just the same as at the other places.
"Now, it is quite clear to you and me, Great Bear," said the Onondaga, "that these men, posted along a curving line, were firing at something.
They were here a long time, as the numerous and crowded footprints at every place show.

They could not have been firing at game, because there were too many of them, and the game would not have stayed to be fired at so long.

Therefore, Great Bear, and you know it as well as I, they must have been in battle.