"Shure, it's a reality, and you have escaped the redskins."

The rest of the party also convinced him that we were alive by shaking
him warmly by the hand, and inquiring how he came to be there.

"Och! shure, but it's a sad story," he answered, "and I'll be afther
telling you all about it. I need not ask you whether you know that the
fort was surprised by the Sioux, and all who could not escape put to
death, for if you have been to the place you would have been afther
seeing the state those thafes of the world left it in. Sandy McTavish
and I, with five others, managed to get away by leaping from the
stockade on one side, as the redskins came in on the other; but short
time we had to do it and hide ourselves. Making our way down to the
canoe, we had just time to shove off before they discovered us and sent
a shower of arrows whizzing round our heads. As it was dark, they did
not take good aim, and though they came howling along on the top of the
bank, we got over to the opposite side, and soon paddled out of their
sight. We had no food and only a couple of muskets which Sandy and I
carried off, for the other men had dropped theirs in their fright, and
what was worse, we found that we had only a few charges of powder and
shot. We got on very well, barring the want of food--for we could see
nothing to shoot--till we came to the rapids, and faith! it would have
been betther if we hadn't thried to shoot them, for though Sandy and the
other man had gone up and down them several times, it was always in a
large canoe. It was late in the day and getting dusk, and somehow or
other Sandy, who was steering, let the canoe strike against a big rock.
Over she went, with a hole knocked through her bows! Having no fancy to
be drowned, I made a leap on to the rock, and shouting to my companions
to follow, with many a hop, skip, and jump, managed to reach the shore;
but when I looked out for the rest of us, I could nowhere see them. I
shouted again and again, but they did not answer. My belafe is that
they were all carried away and drowned. I sat down on the bank, and at
last, as I had been awake for many a long hour, I fell fast asleep.
When I awoke in the morning, not a sight was there of the canoe, and I
thought to myself, What was I to do? I knew that Fort Ross was
somewhere in the direction the sun was used to rise, and so thinks I, if
I kape along in that direction I shall some day get there. I had only
four charges o