my teeth set together in bulldog tenacity, my breath coming
in gasps, the streaming blood from a deep cut over my eyes half
blinding me, yet guided by fierce instinct to find and smite my foes.
I trod on limp bodies, on writhing forms, and felt my weapon clash
against iron rifle barrels and clang upon uplifted steel; but nothing
stopped me,--no cry of terror, no plea for mercy, no clutching hand, no
deadly numbing blow.

God knows the story of that fight,--how long it lasted, by what miracle
't was won. To me it is--and was--little more than a dim haze of
strange leaping figures, of fierce dark faces, of maddened cries of
hate, of uplifted hands, of dull-clashing weapons. I seemed to see it
all through a red fog whence the blood dripped, and I lost
consciousness of everything save my unswerving duty to strike hard
until I fell. At last out from the maelstrom of that wild melee but a
single warrior seemed to face me; and some instinct of the fight caused
me to draw back a pace and wipe the obscuring blood away, that I might
see him better. It came to me that this was to be the end,--the final
duel which was to decide that midnight battle. He and I were there
alone; and the stars bursting through the clouds gave me faint view of
him, and of those dark, silent forms that lined the shore where they
had fallen.

A chief, a Pottawattomie,--this much I knew even in that hasty shrouded
glance. Writers of history affirm my opponent was Peesotum, the same
fierce warrior whose cruel hand slew the brave Captain Wells and
wrenched his still beating heart from out the mutilated body. All I
realized then were his broad sinewy shoulders, his naked brawny body,
his eyes ablaze with malignant hate. He was the first to close, his
wild cry for vengeance piercing the still night; and before I knew it,
the maddened savage was within the guard of my rifle-barrel, and we
were locked in the stern grapple of death.

It was knife to knife, our blades gleaming dull in the dim light of the
stars, each man gripping the up-lifted wrist of the other, putting
forth each last reserve of strength, each cunning trick of fence, to
break free and strike the ending blow. Back and forth we strove,
straining like two wild animals, our moccasined feet slipping on the
wet earth, our muscles strained, and sinews cracking with intensity of
effort, our breath coming in labored gasps, our bodies tense as
bow-strings. Such merciless strain could not endu