However, the battle to snipe at the Canadian Army proved far more difficult than Lefort had imagined.
It was not because the English Army was too strong. In fact, they had not exchanged a single shot with the enemy. They simply could not get close to the English. On a hill thick with pine trees, Lefort watched through his Telescope as English soldiers buried the carcasses of their military horses. Frowning, he said, "The Black Beast Spirit is even angrier. Hugues, tell every soldier—especially the cavalry—that they must stay at least six me... ah, two kilometers away from anyone who speaks English."
"Yes, Commander."
Ever since the Canadian Army entered the Muskegon region—a dense forest more than eighty kilometers south of Fort Mackinac—they had begun to suffer the "punishment of the Black Beast Spirit."
At first, the horses would suddenly develop raging fevers. Within less than a day, they began convulsing and slipping into comas. They could not last three or four days before dying. Those who had frequent contact with the military horses showed similar symptoms, though they usually did not suffer impaired consciousness and comas until five days later. According to traditions passed down among the Indian Tribes, this was the Black Beast Spirit of the forest—a sort of evil spirit—possessing those it hated. Although Lefort and his soldiers had all converted to Catholicism, the Indian Gospel was highly "compatible" and had assigned the Black Beast Spirit a post under Satan.
Naturally, there was no Black Beast Spirit at all. The Canadian Army had contracted a relatively uncommon disease—Eastern Equine Encephalitis. It was a virulent infectious disease spread through birds and mosquitoes as intermediate hosts, and July through November was its peak season. Horses had an astonishingly high infection rate, with a mortality rate exceeding seventy percent. Humans