I reached the palings.  They were of bass wood, roughly split and tough.  I could not scale them with my lame shoulder.  I seized a hatchet from an Indian, struck the stakes, wrenched one free, and climbed through the hole.

The camp was in an uproar.  A few Sacs had scaled the redoubt ahead of me, and one of them was grappling with a Seneca just in my path.  I dodged them and ran on.  Behind me I heard the terrible roar of the blood-hungry army.

I fought my way on.  Warriors and slaves rose before me and screamed at my knife, and at something that was in my face.  I did not touch them.  I had to find the woman.  She might be hiding in one of the huts.  But there were many bark huts, and all alike.  I ran on.

The air was thickening with powder smoke, and the taste of blood was in my throat.  A hatchet whistled by me and cut the cloth from my shoulder.  I saw the Seneca who threw the hatchet, but I would not stop.  Corpses were in my way.  Twice I slipped in blood and went to my knees.

I must search each lodge, each group.  I had seen nothing that looked like a woman.

An Indian grappled with me, and I slashed at him till he was helpless.  I was covered with blood that was not my own.  I let him drop and stumbled on.

I could not find the woman.  I had not seen Starling nor Pierre nor Labarthe nor Leclerc.

And over all the noise of tearing flesh and the screams of dying men came the sound of singing, of constant, exultant singing,—­the singing of victors binding their captives; the death songs of wounded preparing to die.

I saw two bodies lying together as if the same arrow had cleft them.  Their hands sprawled toward me, red and beckoning.  They were mutilated, but I knew their clothes.  They were Leclerc and Labarthe.  Leclerc was hanging on Labarthe as he had leaned in life.

I had brought these men to the wilderness.  And Simon was dead, too.  I went on.

I saw a Seneca, stripped and running blood, crouch to a white man on the ground and lift his knife to take the scalp.  I sprang upon him, but he dashed my knife away, found his feet, and pressed at me.  I dodged his hatchet, and catching up a skin shield from the ground turned on him.  I was taller than he, and I smashed the shield down on his head so that he dropped.  I pounded him till he was beyond doing harm to any one, then I took his knife and hatchet, tossed him aside, and turned to the white man.

It was Starling, and there was life in him, for he opened his eyes.

I took my flask and forced brandy between his teeth.  He recognized me but could not speak.  A great spear had torn through his chest.  I started to pull it out, but when I looked farther and saw what a hatchet had done I checked myself.

His eyes were on mine and he tried to speak.  It was more than I could look at,—­his effort to hold life in his torn body and tell me something.  I eased his head and gave him more brandy.