by the unlooked-for approach to
follow, and they escaped with the loss of one man killed and three
wounded. [Footnote: _Do._]

That night the Indians tried to burn the fort, shooting flaming arrows
onto the roofs of the cabins and rushing up to the wooden wall with
lighted torches. But they were beaten off at each attempt. When day
broke they realized that it was hopeless to make any further effort,
though they still kept up a desultory fire on the fort's defenders; they
had killed most of the cattle and pigs, and some of the horses, and had
driven away the rest.

Girty, who was among the assailants, as a last shift, tried to get the
garrison to surrender, assuring them that the Indians were hourly
expecting reinforcements, including the artillery brought against
Ruddle's and Martin's stations two years previously; and that if forced
to batter down the walls no quarter would be given to any one. Among the
fort's defenders was young Aaron Reynolds, the man whose profanity had
formerly roused Captain Patterson's ire; and he now undertook to be
spokesman for the rest. Springing up into sight he answered Girty in the
tone of rough banter so dear to the backwoodsmen, telling the renegade
that he knew him well, and despised him, that the men in the fort feared
neither cannon nor reinforcements, and if need be, could drive Girty's
tawny followers back from the walls with switches; and he ended by
assuring him that the whites, too, were expecting help, for the country
was roused, and if the renegade and his followers dared to linger where
they were for another twenty-four hours, their scalps would surely be
sun-dried on the roofs of the cabins.

The Indians knew well that the riflemen were mustering at all the
neighboring forts; and, as soon as their effort to treat failed, they
withdrew during the forenoon of the 17th. [Footnote: There are four
contemporary official reports of this battle: two American, those of
Boon and Levi Todd; and two British, those of McKee and Caldwell. All
four agree that the fort was attacked on one day, the siege abandoned on
the next, pursuit made on the third, and the battle fought on the
fourth. Boon and Todd make the siege begin on August 16th, and the
battle take place on the 19th; Caldwell makes the dates the 15th and
18th; McKee makes them the 18th and 21st. I therefore take Boon's and
Todd's dates.

McClung and Marshall make the siege last three or four days instead of
less than two.