cious honor, turned his back square on
the foe and, followed by a small escort of horse, galloped ingloriously
from the field, never drawing bridle till he had gained the shelter of
Fort Chatham, many miles farther up the Thames. Thus hastily deserted by
their general, the regulars, who otherwise had doubtless behaved with
the wonted gallantry of brave Englishmen, threw down their arms with
scarcely a show of resistance and begged for quarter. The white wing of
the enemy thus lopped off at the first blow, the two regiments--the only
part of the American army actually engaged in the contest--now
concentrated upon the red wing, where it still lay concealed within its
swampy covert. Up to this moment the Kentucky regiment of mounted
riflemen had made several ineffectual attempts to dislodge and drive the
Indians from their stronghold, of whom nothing as yet had been seen but
a long, curved line of rifle-smoke which, curling upward from among the
willows and hovering in small blue clouds above the heads of the
ambushed savages, served to trace their order of array.

Meanwhile, the clarion voice of the Indian leader had been heard, in
tones of encouragement, exhortation, and command to his unseen warriors,
rising high and clear above the din of battle. Now, on a sudden, it rang
out stern, abrupt, imperious, like the voice of a trumpet sounding a
desperate charge.

When he found himself deserted by his white ally--the strong hand under
which he and his people had trusted to return to the land of their
fathers--then did the heroic sachem feel that he was fighting the last
battle of a hopeless cause. But too proud to survive a failure so
vast--the blasted hopes of his life, the ruined schemes of his
ambition--he determined to die then and there, and die, too, such a
death as should shed over the very failure an undying glory. To this
intent he would order a general charge, disdaining the further shelter
of his stronghold and meeting the enemy in the open field. True, such a
movement would be utterly at variance with the usages of Indian warfare.
True, also, the enemy to be charged was flushed with present success,
not to mention his being the stronger and made audacious from having
been the pursuer in the chase just ended. But such a movement, from the
fact of its being without example and without hope, would make his skill
as a leader the more apparent, his death as a warrior the more certain
and glorious. Yes, he would order