and twenty-five men had been cut to pieces by
twenty-five Wyandots. From the small Hoy's Station Captain John Holder
had sallied in rescue of two captured boys, and he and his party also
had been badly defeated.

Hoy's Station was threatened by a siege. Help was needed. The men of
Bryant's Station had prepared to march out at daylight this morning to
its relief. Captain John Craig commanded.

Bryant's Station did not know that it was surrounded, itself. How
could it know? There was nothing to show that death couched amidst the
trees and brush close at hand. The night had been unbroken; peace
seemed to smile in the sparkle of the early morning dew. But cracking
never a twig, with the stealth of creeping panthers the Indian army had
arrived and had been posted.

Captain Caldwell divided his force. He stationed one hundred warriors
in hiding about rifle-shot from the gate in the northwest end of the
fort; told them to shoot and yell and draw the Long Knives out. The
three hundred others he stationed in ambush within half rifle-shot of
the spring opposite the other end, the southeast end, in readiness for
a charge when the Long Knives should have been decoyed.

While Bryant's Station did not know what had happened outside, the
Captain Caldwell men did not know what was happening, inside. Had they
only waited, they would have seen all the soldier garrison march away,
leaving the women and children and a few grandfathers--and the fort
would have been seized without trouble except to the defenceless
families.

But even when the army had arrived, in the night, the fort seemed to be
on the alert: there were lights in the cabins, there were voices, there
was bustle to and fro. And before sun-up the drum had beat the
assembly, the soldiers were being put under arms--

Captain Caldwell, the Girtys, the chiefs, and all, were disappointed.
They thought themselves expected. That was a piece of great fortune
for Bryant's Station. Soon several cabin doors, fronting outside, were
cautiously opened, and figures stepped into the clear, as if on hasty
errands. The fort gates, at one end, were being unbarred. It was time
to try the decoy trick--and with a burst of shrill whoops the Indians
posted for a feint fired their guns.

The figures ran, the doors were slammed, the gates closed. The attack
had taken Bryant's Station all by surprise, and it wellnigh worked.
The men rushed to the pickets, to peer. They saw a sc