ng
an abortive attempt to send a canoe load across, remained idle
spectators of the terribly unequal conflict. Dale, seeing that no help
was to come from them, and knowing that the Indians would shortly
overcome him by sheer force of numbers, resolved upon a recklessly
daring manoeuvre, namely, an attempt to capture the Indian canoe! He
called out to his comrades.

"I'm going to fight the canoe with a canoe. Who will go with me?"

Austill, Smith and Caesar volunteered at once, and Caesar took his post as
steersman, while the three stalwart soldiers were leaping into the
canoe for the purpose of fighting hand to hand the nine Indians opposed
to them. As they shot out from the shore the savages on the bank
delivered a fierce fire upon them, but fortunately without effect. The
savages in the canoe had exhausted their powder, and Dale's party would
have had an advantage in this but for the fact that their own powder had
become wet as they were getting into their canoe. The fight must be hand
to hand, but they were not the men to shrink from it. When the boats
struck, the Indians leaped up and began using their rifles as clubs.
Austill, who was in the bow of Dale's boat, received the first shock of
the battle, but Caesar promptly swung his boat around, and grappling the
other canoe held the two side by side during the whole fight. Dale's
boat was a very small one, and he to relieve it sprang into the Indian
canoe, thereby giving his comrades more room and crowding the Indians so
closely together as to embarrass their movements. The blows now fell
thick and fast. Austill was knocked down into the Indian boat, and an
Indian was about to put him to death when Smith saved him by braining
the savage. Austill then rose, and snatching a war club from one of the
Indians used that instead of his rifle. Eight of the savages were slain,
and Dale found himself face to face with the solitary survivor, whom he
recognized as a young Muscogee with whom he had been for years on terms
of the most intimate friendship, and whom he loved, as he declared,
almost as a brother. He lowered his up-raised rifle to spare his friend,
but the savage would not accept quarter. He cried out in the Creek
language, which Dale understood as well as he did English.

"Big Sam, you are a man, and I am another! Now for it!" and with that
the two joined in a struggle for life. A blow from Dale's gun ended at
once the canoe fight and the life of the young brave, w