e bank of the brook was higher than the ground where we
were, and Rogers gave the order:--

"Come, boys! Stretch out in a line behind the bank. Lie down and keep
hidden. Wait till I give the signal by firing my gun, and then jump up
and give it to them."

Rogers hid in a clump of bushes, from which he could look over the bank.
We lay without stirring, till Rogers fired and shouted, "Now, boys."

We jumped up and fired at them. It was the first time I had seen
Indians, and very hideous they looked, as I stood up and saw them on the
brook, dressed in moccasins, leggings, and breech clout, with a mantle
or cloak of skins over their shoulders, a feather in the scalp-lock, and
their faces and breasts painted with stripes of red and black.

When we fired, a great number of them fell, and the rest ran away. We
supposed that they were defeated, and pursued them. But we got into a
hornets' nest. For this was only the advanced guard, and as we ran after
them, several hundred more French and Indians came up, fired at us, and
killed nearly fifty of our men. I could hear the bullets whistle by me,
and men dropped at my side.

We rallied and retreated; and having reloaded, poured a volley into them
that drove them back again.

"What do you think about that fire on the island, Ben?" asked Martin.

They came on a third time, in front and on both sides of us. We kept up
a continual fire and drove the flanking parties back, and they retreated
once more.

[Sidenote: WARM WORK]

When that great body of French and Indians appeared and their fierce
war-whoops sounded through the woods, when the firing began and the men
fell down close by me, I must confess I was nervous and frightened. But
I looked on either side, and there stood the grim, stern frontiersmen
picking off their men as cool as if they were at a turkey shoot. This
brought my confidence back at once, and as the fight became hot, I found
myself filled with an angry rage. I wanted to kill, to kill as many as I
could, and pay off the old score.

We backed up against the steep mountain. The Indians now tried to go up
it on our right, but a party was sent out and repulsed them. Another
party attempted to ascend on our left. They, too, were driven back.
Edmund, Amos, and I were with the main body, fighting, loading, and
shooting as fast as we could. No time for talk. Sometimes the Indians
were twenty yards from us, and at times we were all mixed up with them,
fighting hand