t in safety. Let the
name of Elizabeth Zane be remembered among the heroic of her sex.

About half-past two o'clock, the savages again advanced and renewed their
fire. An impetuous attack was made upon the south side of the fort, but
the garrison poured upon the assailants a destructive fire from the two
lower block-houses. At the same time, a party of eighteen or twenty
Indians, armed with rails and billets of wood, rushed out of Zane's yard
and made an attempt to force open the gate of the fort. Five or six of the
number were shot down, and then the attempt was abandoned. The Indians
then opened a fire upon the fort from all sides, except that next the
river, which afforded no shelter to besiegers. On the north and east the
battle raged fiercely. As night came on the fire of the enemy slackened.
Soon after dark, a party of savages advanced within sixty yards of the
fort, bringing a hollow maple log which they had loaded to the muzzle and
intended to use it as a cannon. The match was applied and the wooden piece
bursted, killing or wounding several of those who stood near it. The
disappointed party then dispersed.

Late in the evening, Francis Duke, son-in-law of Colonel Shepherd,
arriving from the Forks of Wheeling, was shot down before he could reach
the fort. About four o'clock next morning, Colonel Swearingen, with
fourteen men, arrived from Cross Creek, and was fortunate enough to fight
his way into the fort without losing a single man.

This reinforcement was cheering to the wearied garrison. More relief was
at hand. About daybreak, Major Samuel M'Culloch, with forty mounted men
from Short Creek, arrived. The gate was thrown open, and the men, though
closely beset by the enemy, entered the fort. But Major M'Culloch was not
so fortunate. The Indians crowded round and separated him from the party.
After several ineffectual attempts to force his way to the gate, he turned
and galloped off in the direction of Wheeling Hill.

[Illustration: DARING FEAT OF ELIZABETH ZANE.]

When he was hemmed in by the Indians before the fort, they might have
taken his life without difficulty, but they had weighty reasons for
desiring to take him alive. From the very commencement of the war, his
reputation as an Indian hunter was as great as that of any white man on
the north-western border. He had participated in so many rencontres that
almost every warrior possessed a knowledge of his person. Among the
Indians his name was a word