nse smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two
savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to
ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing
with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of
the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he
received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him.
Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into the wilderness, the only
one of the eight who survived the conflict.

A white man who was at that time a prisoner among the Indians and who
subsequently effected his escape, reported that when the wounded savage
reached his tribe he said to the white captive in broken English:

"I have bad news for the poor Indian. Me lose a son, me lose a broder.
The squaws have taken the breech clout, and fight worse than the long
knives."

But the Indians were not always the aggressors. Indeed it is doubtful
whether they would ever have raised the war-whoop against the white man,
had it not been for the outrages they were so constantly experiencing
from unprincipled and vagabond adventurers, who were ever infesting the
frontiers. The following incident illustrates the character and conduct
of these miscreants:

A party of Indian hunters from the South wandering through their ancient
hunting grounds of Kentucky, accidentally came upon a settlement where
they found several horses grazing in the field. They stole the horses,
and commenced a rapid retreat to their own country. Three young men,
Davis, Caffre and McClure, pursued them. Not being able to overtake the
fugitives, they decided to make reprisals on the first Indians they
should encounter. It so happened that they soon met three Indian
hunters. The parties saluted each other in a friendly manner, and
proceeded on their way in pleasant companionship.

The young men said that they observed the Indians conversing with one
another in low tones of voice, and thus they became convinced that the
savages meditated treachery. Resolving to anticipate the Indians'
attack, they formed the following plan. While walking together in
friendly conversation, the Indians being entirely off their guard,
Caffre, who was a very powerful man, was to spring upon the lightest of
the Indians, crush him to the ground, and thus take him a prisoner. At
the same instant, Davis and McClure were each to shoot one of the other
Indians, who, being thus ta