It sounds like an unreasonable tale, or something after the style of a
fairy-story, to say that a party of lads, drilling with wooden guns, were
able, without being conscious of the fact, to frighten from his bloody
work such a murderous, powerful sachem as Thayendanega, or Joseph Brant,
to use his English name, but such is the undisputed fact.

It was the month of May in the year of our Lord 1777, when we of Cherry
Valley, in the Province of New York, learned that this same Thayendanega,
a pure-blooded Mohawk Indian, whose father was chief of the Onondaga
nation, had come into the Mohawk Valley from Canada with a large force of
Indians, who, under the wicked tutoring of Sir John Johnson, were ripe for
mischief.

Col. Samuel Campbell, my uncle, was one of the leading patriots in that
section of the province, and it was well known that the Johnsons,--Sir
John and Guy,--the Butlers, Daniel Claus, and, in fact, all the Tories
nearabout, would direct that the first blow be struck at Cherry Valley, in
order that my uncle might be killed or made prisoner; therefore, at the
time when we lads frightened Joseph Brant without our own knowledge, we
were in daily fear of being set upon by our enemies.

Among the boys of the settlement I, Noel Campbell, was looked upon as a
leader simply because my uncle was the most influential Whig in the
vicinity, and my particular friend and comrade was Jacob Sitz, son of
Peter, a lad who could easily best us all in trials of strength or of
woodcraft.

We had heard of the Minute Men of Lexington and of the Green Mountains,