[Footnote 6:  Colonel (kur’nel):  the chief officer of a regiment of soldiers.]

[Footnote 7:  Goffe (Gof):  and see List of Books at the end of this book.]

[Footnote 8:  War-whoop (war-hoop):  a very loud, shrill cry made by the Indians when engaged in war, or as a shout of alarm.]

92.  How a woman drove off an Indian.—­In this dreadful war with the savages there were times when even the women had to fight for their lives.  In one case, a woman had been left in a house with two young children.  She heard a noise at the window, and looking up, saw an Indian trying to raise the sash.  Quick as thought, she clapped the two little children under two large brass kettles which stood near.  Then, seizing a shovel-full of red-hot coals from the open fire, she stood ready, and just as the Indian thrust his head into the room, she dashed the coals right into his face and eyes.  With a yell of agony the Indian let go his hold, dropped to the ground as though he had been shot, and ran howling to the woods.

[Illustration:  WOMAN THROWING COALS.]

93.  The great swamp fight; burning the Indian wigwams; what the Chief Canonchet[9] said.—­During the summer and autumn of 1675 the Indians on the west side of Narragansett Bay[10]took no open part in King Philip’s War.  But the next winter the white people found that these Indians were secretly receiving and sheltering the savages who had been wounded in fighting for that noted chief.  For that reason, the settlers determined to raise a large force and attack them.  The Indians had gathered in a fort on an island in a swamp.  This fort was a very difficult place to reach.  It was built of the trunks of trees set upright in the ground.  It was so strong that the savages felt quite safe.

Starting very early in the morning, the attacking party waded fifteen miles through deep snow.  Many of them had their hands and feet badly frozen.  One of the chief men in leading the attack was Captain Benjamin Church of Plymouth; he was a very brave soldier, and knew all about Indian life and Indian fighting.  In the battle, he was struck by two bullets, and so badly wounded that he could not move a step further; but he made one of his men hold him up, and he shouted to his soldiers to go ahead.  The fight was a desperate one, but at length the fort was taken.  The attacking party lost more than two hundred and fifty men in killed and wounded; the Indians lost as many as a thousand.

After the battle was over, Captain Church begged the men not to burn the wigwams inside the fort, for there were a great number of old men and women and little Indian children in the wigwams.  But the men were very mad against the savages, and would not listen to him.  They set the wigwams on fire, and burned many of these poor creatures to death.

Canonchet, the chief of the tribe, was taken prisoner.  The settlers told him they would spare his life if he would try to make peace.  “No,” said he, “we will all fight to the last man rather than become slaves to the white men.”  He was then told that he must be shot.  “I like it well,” said he.  “I wish to die before my heart becomes soft, or I say anything unworthy of myself.”