e Indians, realizing they
had been tricked and had lost a golden opportunity, rushed at the
Fort with renewed energy. They attacked from all sides and with the
persistent fury of savages long disappointed in their hopes. They
were received with a scathing, deadly fire. Bang! roared the cannon,
and the detachment of savages dropped their ladders and fled. The
little "bull dog" was turned on its swivel and directed at another
rush of Indians. Bang! and the bullets, chainlinks, and bits of iron
ploughed through the ranks of the enemy. The Indians never lived who
could stand in the face of well-aimed cannon-shot. They fell back.
The settlers, inspired, carried beyond themselves by the heroism of
a girl, fought as they had never fought before. Every shot went to a
redskin's heart, impelled by the powder for which a brave girl had
offered her life, guided by hands and arms of iron, and aimed by
eyes as fixed and stern as Fate, every bullet shed the life-blood of
a warrior.

Slowly and sullenly the red men gave way before that fire. Foot by
foot they retired. Girty was seen no more. Fire, the Shawnee chief,
lay dead in the road almost in the same spot where two days before
his brother chief, Red Fox, had bit the dust. The British had long
since retreated.

When night came the exhausted and almost famished besiegers sought
rest and food.

The moon came out clear and beautiful, as if ashamed at her
traitor's part of the night before, and brightened up the valley,
bathing the Fort, the river, and the forest in her silver light.

Shortly after daybreak the next morning the Indians, despairing of
success, held a pow-wow. While they were grouped in plain view of
the garrison, and probably conferring over the question of raising
the siege, the long, peculiar whoop of an Indian spy, who had been
sent out to watch for the approach of a relief party, rang out. This
seemed a signal for retreat. Scarcely had the shrill cry ceased to
echo in the hills when the Indians and the British, abandoning their
dead, moved rapidly across the river.

After a short interval a mounted force was seen galloping up the
creek road. It proved to be Capt. Boggs, Swearengen, and Williamson
with seventy men. Great was the rejoicing. Capt. Boggs had expected
to find only the ashes of the Fort. And the gallant little garrison,
although saddened by the loss of half its original number, rejoiced
that it had repulsed the united forces of braves and British.