noon before
For hellish ingenuity and devilish cruelty these mock savages , the Oneida assured us , had nothing to learn from their red comrades ; and I shall never be able to efface from my mind the memory of what we saw , that very day , in a lonely farm-house on the flats of the Mohawk ; nor was it necessary that McCraw should have left his mark on the shattered door -- a cock crowing , drawn in outline by a man 's forefinger steeped in blood -- to enlighten those who might not recognize the ghastly work as his . We stayed there for three hours to bury the dead , an old man and woman , a young mother , and five children , the youngest an infant not a year old . All had been scalped ; even the watch-dog lay dead near the bloody cradle . We dug the shallow graves with difficulty , having nothing to work with save our hunting-knives and some broken dishes which we found in the house ; and it was close to noon before we left the lonely flat and pushed forward through miles of stunted willow growth towards the river road which led to Johnstown . I shall never forget Mount 's set face nor Murphy 's terrible , vacant stare as we plodded on in absolute silence . Elerson led us on a steady trot hour after hour , till , late in the afternoon , we crossed the river road and wheeled into it exhausted . The west was all aglow ; cleared land and fences lay along the roadside ; here and there houses loomed up in the red , evening light , but their inhabitants were gone , and not a sign of life remained about them save for the circling swallows whirling in and out of the blackened chimneys .