ugas with a sprinkling of
Oneidas. We had a running fight for a few miles, and we have lost five
men."

"All dead, I trust."

"I hope so, but we were hard pressed to keep from being cut off.
Jean Mance is shot through the leg."

"I saw that he was hit."

"We had best have all ready to retire to the house if they carry the
stockade. We can scarce hope to hold it when they are twenty to one."

"All is ready."

"And with our cannon we can keep their canoes from passing, so we might
send our women away to-night."

"I had intended to do so. Will you take charge of the north side?
You might come across to me with ten of your men now, and I shall go
back to you if they change their attack."

The firing came in one continuous rattle now from the edges of the wood,
and the air was full of bullets. The assailants were all trained shots,
men who lived by their guns, and to whom a shaking hand or a dim eye
meant poverty and hunger. Every slit and crack and loop-hole was
marked, and a cap held above the stockade was blown in an instant from
the gun barrel which supported it. On the other hand, the defenders
were also skilled in Indian fighting, and wise in every trick and lure
which could protect themselves or tempt their enemies to show. They
kept well to the sides of the loop-holes, watching through little
crevices of the wood, and firing swiftly when a chance offered. A red
leg sticking straight up into the air from behind a log showed where one
bullet at least had gone home, but there was little to aim at save a
puff and flash from among the leaves, or the shadowy figure of a warrior
seen for an instant as he darted from one tree-trunk to the other.
Seven of the Canadians had already been hit, but only three were
mortally wounded, and the other four still kept manfully to their
loop-holes, though one who had been struck through the jaw was spitting
his teeth with his bullets down into his gun-barrel. The women sat in a
line upon the ground, beneath the level of the loop-holes, each with a
saucerful of bullets and a canister of powder, passing up the loaded
guns to the fighting men at the points where a quick fire was most
needful.

At first the attack had been all upon the south face, but as fresh
bodies of the Iroquois came up their line spread and lengthened until
the whole east face was girt with fire, which gradually enveloped the
north also. The fort was ringed in by a great loop of smoke, save only
w