now, after
six hours of continuous fighting, be eager to withdraw. They had fought
the most bitterly contested battle ever participated in by their race.

Nor had they, as in Braddock's defeat, been aided by white men. There
were, to be true, several white men among them, such as Tavenor Ross, John
Ward and George Collet; but these counted no more than ordinary warriors
and Collet was killed before the fighting was half over. According to all
precedents the battle should have ended in an Indian rout by the time the
sun crossed the meridian. Instead the savages stiffened their resistance
and held their line.

Our men cheered from parched throats when word was passed that Collet's
body had been found and identified. Poor devil! Perhaps it opened the long
trace to him, where everything would be made right. He was captured when a
child and had responded to the only environment he had ever known.

The case of such as Collet--yes, and of John Ward and Ross--is entirely
different from that of Timothy Dorman, and others of his kind, who was
captured when a grown man and who turned renegade to revenge himself for
wrongs, real or fancied, on his old neighbors.

It was not until after seven hours of fighting that we detected any
falling off in the enemy's resistance. Even then the savages had the
advantage of an excellent position, and to press them was extremely
hazardous business. We continued to crowd them, however, until they were
lined up on a long ridge which extended from the small marsh where Cousin
and I first saw Robertson and Sevier, for half a mile to the east, where
it was cut by the narrow bed of Crooked Creek.

None of us needed to be told that so long as the enemy held this ridge our
camp at the Point was in grave danger. From the riflemen along the Ohio
word came that the Indians were throwing their dead into the river, while
squaws and boys were dragging back their wounded.

This had a heartening effect on us, for it indicated a doubt was creeping
into the minds of the savages. Once they permitted the possibility of
defeat to possess them their effectiveness would decrease. Company
commanders called on their men to take the ridge, but to keep their line
intact.

With wild cheers the men responded and buckled down to the grueling task.
Every patch of fallen timber proved to be an Indian fort, where the
bravest of the tribes fought until they were killed. It was stubborn
traveling, but our riflemen were not