With great difficulty and some danger the ship-wrecked crew did at length succeed in getting ashore, with their rifles and a fair supply of powder and lead, and without an instant’s delay they set about building a rude breastwork for protection if matters should come to a fight.  The stranded vessel must certainly have been already seen by the Indians; at any moment they might appear.  But the breastwork was completed without interruption, and still no sign of the Redskins had been seen.  It was at least breathing space, though all knew what must assuredly follow, and to some the actual immediate combat would have been less unwelcome than was now the suspense.

After consultation, a few of the party, including Kerr, whose knowledge of Indian ways it was thought might be useful, left the breastwork to spy on the enemy—­or at least to try to pick up some knowledge of their whereabouts.  Had it been into that enchanted land that they now entered, where lay the Sleeping Beauty, the forest shades could not have been more still, more apparently devoid of life.  No breath of wind stirred leaf or bough, all nature breathed peace, and, lulled to a sense of security, the little party ventured farther among the trees than was prudent.  In Indian warfare, appearances were ever deceitful; the greater the apparent security, the greater the need for caution.  So it was now here.

“I guess it ain’t all right,” one man was saying; “I don’t like it.  Get back, boys.”

And even as he spoke, “crack” went a rifle on their left—­“crack,” “crack,” “crack,” came the sound of fire-arms on three sides; and as they turned and ran for the breastwork, a man hiccoughed and fell on his face, clutching at the grass, coughing up his life-blood.  No time to turn and help; the yelling Redskins were at their heels, tomahawk and scalping knife in hand; delay meant certain death for all, and the fugitives tumbled into the breastwork just in time.  Then, save for one awful scream of agony, again for a time all was quiet; for any sign that might be seen of them by the white men, the forest might have swallowed up the enemy.  But let one of these white men for but an instant show his head over the breastwork, or in any way expose an arm or even a hand, then from the concealed foe came at once a hail of bullets, and the forest rang with the crack of rifles.  Several of the little garrison, careless, or too impatient to fire only through the roughly made loopholes, lost their lives in this way; and some others were picked off by Indians who had managed to get into the high branches of neighbouring trees, and thence, concealed behind thick foliage, fired on the garrison, for a time with impunity, till by chance it was discovered from where the fatal shots were coming.

Meantime, for the white men it was almost like letting off their rifles into the night; seldom could a Redskin be seen, and men fired only at the spots where the smoke of Indian muskets hung about the undergrowth, or where they saw a spirt of flame.