" The provisions and stores had been plundered and destroyed. Among the supplies was a large number of boxes of chocolate which had been broken open and their contents strewed upon the ground, which dissolving in the fervid heat of the summer sun, mingled with the pools and rivulets of blood forming a sickening and revolting spectacle. The convoy had been ambushed and attacked immediately after leaving the protection of the stockade post, and the massacre took place upon the flats, between the Half-

THE HALF-WAY BROOK IN HISTORY. I79

Way Brook, and the Blind rock, or what is more commonly known at the present day as the Miller place. " Putnam with his command, took the trail of the marauders, which soon became strewed with fragments of plunder dropped by the rapidly retreating savages, who succeeded in making their escape, with but little loss of life. The Provincials unable to catch up with the savages, returned immediately to the scene of the butchery, where they found a company from Fort Edward engaged in preparing a trench for the interment of the dead. " Over one hundred of the soldiers composing the escort were slain, many of whom were recognized as officers, from their uniforms, consisting in part of red velvet breeches. The corpses of twelve females were mingled with the dead bodies of the soldiery. All the teamsters were supposed to have been killed. While the work of burial was going forward the rangers occupied themselves in searching the trails leading through the dense underbrush and tangled briars which covered the swampy plains. Several of the dead were by this means added to the already large number of the slain. On the Siide of one of these trails, the narrator of these events found the corpse of a woman which had been exposed to the most barbarous indignities and mutilations, and fastened in an upright position to a sapling which had been bent over for the purpose.