n in each boat was the rule, but in the leading canoe a young
Indian lad was also squatted, in the bow.

With breathless suspense our hunters stood helpless to warn or help as
the long line glided on to its fate.

Ten, twelve, fourteen, fifteen stole past the point. Then the horror
of horrors happened.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE BATTLE.

From the point burst out a sudden cloud of flame and smoke. Six of the
canoes in the lead and six in the rear of the long procession came to a
sudden halt. Of their occupants, some crumpled up where they had stood
like bits of flame-swept paper. Others pitched forward in the bottom
of their crafts, while still others stood for a minute swaying from
left to right like drunken men, to finally crash over the sides like
fallen trees, taking their cranky crafts over with them in their plunge
of death.

Only for a second was there confusion amongst the remaining canoes.
Before the volley could be repeated, they had drawn closer together.
Each Indian had dropped his pole, and seizing his rifle crouched low in
the bottom of his craft, his keen eyes searching the point.

"They're heroes, that's what they are," cried Charley, his eyes
flashing and cheeks aflame, "they are as good as dead if they stay, and
yet they will not flee."

"Suicide, I call it," said the captain harshly, to conceal his emotion
of horror and admiration. "But there's one there who is going to save
his skin. See that young lad who was in the first canoe. He is poling
away now that his companion has fallen."

"But not willingly," said Charley, who had been watching the little
by-play, "did you see him pick up his gun? He wanted to fight, but the
rest shouted and made signs to him till he put it down. I've got it,"
he exclaimed, "it was the chief in that canoe. They are trying to
cover his retreat, poor fellows. They are what I call men."

There had been no cessation in the fighting while the captain and
Charley were talking; flame and smoke continued to burst out from the
point in almost a continuous stream, while those in the canoes were not
inactive. Where an arm or leg showed to their hawk-like eyes, their
rifles cracked sharply, to be generally rewarded with a howl of pain
from some cutthroat who had been winged. But there could be but one
end to such a battle. The convicts were well protected behind big
trees, while the flimsy sides of their canoes afforded the brave little
band of Seminoles almo