Since Wyoming, loaded with
scalps, flushed with victory, and aided by the king's men, they
felt equal to anything. Only the strongest of the border
settlements could hold them back. The colonists here were so
much reduced, and so little help could be sent them from the
East, that the Iroquois were able to divide into innumerable
small parties and rake the country as with a fine tooth comb.
They never missed a lone farmhouse, and rarely was any fugitive
in the woods able to evade them. And they were constantly fed
from the North with arms, ammunition, rewards for scalps,
bounties, and great promises.
But toward the close of August the Iroquois began to hear of a
silent and invisible foe, an evil spirit that struck them, and
that struck hard. There were battles of small forces in which
sometimes not a single Iroquois escaped. Captives were retaken
in a half-dozen instances, and the warriors who escaped reported
that their assailants were of uncommon size and power. They had
all the cunning of the Indian and more, and they carried rifles
that slew at a range double that of those served to them at the
British posts. It was a certainty that they were guided by the
evil spirit, because every attempt to capture them failed
miserably.
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