Enoch in our train. It was a busy morning at the Fonda house, where we
despatched our business, only Jelles Fonda and his brother Captain Adam
and the staunch old Samson Sammons being admitted to our counsels.

Here Enoch repeated his story, telling now in addition that one-half of
the approaching force was composed of Hanau Chasseurs--skilled marksmen
recruited in Germany from the gamekeeper or forester class--and that
Joseph Brant was expected to meet them at Oswego with the Iroquois war
party, Colonel Claus having command of the Missisaguesor Hurons from the
Far West. As he mentioned the names of various officers in Sir John's
regiment of Tories, we ground our teeth with wrath. They were the names of
men we had long known in the Valley--men whose brothers and kinsmen were
still among us, some even holding commissions in our militia. Old Sammons
could not restrain a snort of rage when the name of Hon-Yost Herkimer was
mentioned in this list of men who wore now the traitor's "Royal Green"
uniform, and carried commissions from King George to fight against their
own blood.

"You saw no Sammons in that damned snake's nest, I'll be bound!" he
shouted fiercely at Enoch.

"Nor any Fonda, either," said Major Jelles, as firmly.

But then both bethought them that these were cruel words to say in the
hearing of the stalwart John Frey, who could not help it that his brother,
Colonel Hendrick, was on parole as a suspected Tory, and that another
brother, Bernard, and a nephew, young Philip Frey, Hendrick's son, were
with Johnson in Canada. So the family subject was dropped.

More or less minute reports of all that Enoch revealed, according to the