writes he, "are obeyed, but such as a party of soldiers or my own
drawn sword enforces. Without this, not a single horse, for the most
earnest occasion, can be had."

In the meantime the panic and confusion increased. On Sunday an
express hurried into town, breathless with haste and terror. The
Indians, he said, were but twelve miles off; they had attacked the
house of Isaac Julian; the inhabitants were flying for their lives.
Washington immediately ordered the town guards to be strengthened;
armed some recruits who had just arrived, and sent out two scouts to
reconnoitre the enemy. It was a sleepless night in Winchester. Horror
increased with the dawn; before the men could be paraded, a second
express arrived, ten times more terrified than the former. The Indians
were within four miles of the town, killing and destroying all before
them. He had heard the constant firing of the savages and the shrieks
of their victims.

The terror of Winchester now passed all bounds. Washington put himself
at the head of about forty men, militia and recruits, and pushed for
the scene of carnage. The result is almost too ludicrous for record.
The whole cause of the alarm proved to be three drunken troopers,
carousing, hallooing, and ever and anon firing off their pistols.
Washington interrupted them in the midst of their revel and blasphemy
and conducted them prisoners to town. The alarm thus originating had
spread throughout the country. A captain, who arrived with recruits
from Alexandria, reported that he had found the road across the Blue
Ridge obstructed by crowds of people flying for their lives, whom he
endeavored in vain to stop. They declared that Winchester was in
flames!

At length the band of Indians, whose ravages had produced this
consternation throughout the land, and whose numbers did not exceed
one hundred and fifty, being satiated with carnage, conflagration and
plunder, retreated, bearing off spoils and captives. Intelligent
scouts sent out by Washington followed their traces, and brought back
certain intelligence that they had recrossed the Alleghany Mountains
and returned to their homes on the Ohio. This report allayed the
public panic and restored temporary quiet to the harassed frontier.
Most of the Indians engaged in these ravages were Delawares and
Shawnees, who, since Braddock's defeat, had been gained over by the
French. Scarooyadi, successor to the half-king, remained true to the
English, and vindicated hi