CHAPTER XIX. THE HAIR BUYER TRAPPED
To lie the night on adamant, pierced by the needles of the frost; toawake shivering and famished, until the meaning of an inch of ice onthe backwater comes to your mind,--these are not calculated to put a maninto an equable mood to listen to oratory. Nevertheless there was akind of oratory to fit the case. To picture the misery of these menis well-nigh impossible. They stood sluggishly in groups, dazed bysuffering, and their faces were drawn and their eyes ringed, theirbeards and hair matted. And many found it in their hearts to curse Clarkand that government for which he fought.
When the red fire of the sun glowed through the bare branches thatmorning, it seemed as if the campaign had spent itself like an arrowwhich drops at the foot of the mark. Could life and interest andenthusiasm be infused again in such as these? I have ceased to marvelhow it was done. A man no less haggard than the rest, but with acompelling force in his eyes, pointed with a blade to the hills acrossthe river. They must get to them, he said, and their troubles would beended. He said more, and they cheered him. These are the bare facts. Hepicked a man here, and another there, and these went silently to a grimduty behind the regiment.
“If any try to go back, shoot them down!” he cried.
Then with a gun-butt he shattered the ice and was the first to leapinto the water under it. They followed, some with a cheer that was mostpitiful of all. They followed him blindly, as men go to torture, butthey followed him, and the splashing and crushing of the ice were soundsto freeze my body. I was put in a canoe. In my day I have beheld greatsuffering and hardship, and none of it compared to this. Torn with pity,I saw them reeling through the water, now grasping trees and bushesto try to keep their feet, the strongest breaking the way ahead andsupporting the weak between them. More than once Clark himself totteredwhere he beat the ice at the apex of the line. Some swooned and wouldhave drowned had they not been dragged across the canoe and chafed backto consciousness. By inches the water shallowed. Clark reached the highground, and then Bill Cowan, with a man on each shoulder. Then othersendured to the shallows to fall heavily in the crumbled ice and bedragged out before they died. But at length, by God’s grace, the wholeregiment was on the land. Fires would not revive some, but Clark himselfseized a fainting man by the arms and walked him up and down in thesunlight until his blood ran again.
It was a glorious day, a day when the sap ran in the maples, and the sunsoared upwards in a sky of the palest blue. All this we saw through thetracery of the leafless branches,--a mirthless, shivering crowd, creptthrough a hell of weather into the Hair Buyer’s very lair. Had heneither heard nor seen?
Down the steel-blue lane of water between the ice came a canoe. Ourstunted senses perceived it, unresponsive. A man cried out (it was TomMcChesney); now some of them had leaped into the pirogue, now they werereturning. In the towed canoe two fat and stolid squaws and a pappoosewere huddled, and beside them--God be praised!--food. A piece of buffaloon its way to town, and in the end compartment of the boat tallowand bear’s grease lay revealed by two blows of the tomahawk. Thekettles--long disused--were fetched, and broth made and fed in sips tothe weakest, while the strongest looked on and smiled in an agony ofself-restraint. It was a fearful thing to see men whose legs had refusedservice struggle to their feet when they had drunk the steaming, greasymixture. And the Colonel, standing by the river’s edge, turned his faceaway--down-stream. And then, as often, I saw the other side of the man.Suddenly he looked at me, standing wistful at his side.
“They have cursed me,” said he, by way of a question, “they have cursedme every day.” And seeing me silent, he insisted, “Tell me, is it notso, Davy?”
“It is so,” I said, wondering that he should pry, “but it was while theysuffered. And--and some refrained.”
“And you?” he asked queerly.
“I--I could not, sir. For I asked leave to come.”
“If they have condemned me to a thousand hells,” said he,dispassionately, “I should not blame them.” Again he looked at me. “Doyou understand what you have done?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I said uneasily.
“And yet there are some human qualities in you, Davy. You have beenworth more to me than another regiment.”
I stared.
“When you grow older, if you ever do, tell your children that once upona time you put a hundred men to shame. It is no small thing.”
Seeing him relapse into silence, I did not speak. For the space of halfan hour he stared down the river, and I knew that he was looking vainlyfor the Willing.
At noon we crossed, piecemeal, a deep lake in the canoes, and marchingawhile came to a timber-covered rise which our French prisoners namedas the Warriors’ Island. And from the shelter of its trees we saw thesteely lines of a score of low ponds, and over the tops of as manyridges a huddle of brown houses on the higher ground.
And this was the place we had all but sold our lives to behold! This wasVincennes at last! We were on the heights behind the town,--we were atthe back door, as it were. At the far side, on the Wabash River, was thefront door, or Fort Sackville, where the banner of England snapped inthe February breeze.
We stood there, looking, as the afternoon light flooded the plain.Suddenly the silence was broken.
“Hooray for Clark!” cried a man at the edge of the copse.
“Hooray for Clark!”--it was the whole regiment this time. Fromexecration to exaltation was but a step, after all. And the Creoles fellto scoffing at their sufferings and even forgot their hunger in staringat the goal. The backwoodsmen took matters more stolidly, havingacquired long since the art of waiting. They lounged about, cleaningtheir guns, watching the myriad flocks of wild ducks and geese castingblue-black shadows on the ponds.
“Arrah, McChesney,” said Terence, as he watched the circling birds,“Clark’s a great man, but ‘tis more riverince I’d have for him if wan avthim was sizzling on the end of me ramrod.”
“I’d sooner hev the Ha’r Buyer’s sculp,” said Tom.
Presently there was a drama performed for our delectation. A shot camedown the wind, and we perceived that several innocent Creole gentlemen,unconscious of what the timber held, were shooting the ducks and geese.Whereupon Clark chose Antoine and three of our own Creoles to sally outand shoot likewise--as decoys. We watched them working their way overthe ridges, and finally saw them coming back with one of the Vincennessportsmen. I cannot begin to depict the astonishment of this man whenhe reached the copse, and was led before our lean, square-shoulderedcommander. Yes, monsieur, he was a friend of les Américains. DidGovernor Hamilton know that a visit was imminent? Pardieu (with manyshrugs and outward gestures of the palms), Governor Hamilton had said ifthe Long Knives had wings or fins they might reach him now--he was allunprepared.
“Gentlemen,” said Colonel Clark to Captains Bowman and McCarty andWilliams, “we have come so far by audacity, and we must continue byaudacity. It is of no use to wait for the gunboat, and every momentwe run the risk of discovery. I shall write an open letter to theinhabitants of Vincennes, which the prisoner shall take into town. Ishall tell them that those who are true to the oath they swore to FatherGibault shall not be molested if they remain quietly in their houses.Let those who are on the side of the Hair Buyer General and his King goto the fort and fight there.”
He bade me fetch the portfolio he carried, and with numbed fingers wrotethe letter while his captains stared in admiration and amazement. Whata stroke was this! There were six hundred men in the town andfort,--soldiers, inhabitants, and Indians,--while we had but 170,starved and weakened by their incredible march. But Clark was not tobe daunted. Whipping out his field-glasses, he took a stand on a littlemound under the trees and followed the fast-galloping messenger acrossthe plain; saw him enter the town; saw the stir in the streets, knots ofmen riding out and gazing, hands on foreheads, towards the place wherewe were. But, as the minutes rolled into hours, there was no furtheralarm. No gun, no beat to quarters or bugle-call from Fort Sackville.W
hat could it mean?
Clark’s next move was an enigma, for he set the men to cutting andtrimming tall sapling poles. To these were tied (how reverently!) thetwenty stands of colors which loving Creole hands had stitched. Theboisterous day was reddening to its close as the Colonel lined hislittle army in front of the wood, and we covered the space of fourthousand. For the men were twenty feet apart and every tenth carried astandard. Suddenly we were aghast as the full meaning of the inspirationdawned upon us. The command was given, and we started on our marchtoward Vincennes. But not straight,--zigzagging, always keeping theridges between us and the town, and to the watching inhabitants itseemed as if thousands were coming to crush them. Night fell, the colorswere furled and the saplings dropped, and we pressed into serriedranks and marched straight over hill and dale for the lights that werebeginning to twinkle ahead of us.
We halted once more, a quarter of a mile away. Clark himself had pickedfourteen men to go under Lieutenant Bayley through the town and take thefort from the other side. Here was audacity with a vengeance. You maybe sure that Tom and Cowan and Ray were among these, and I trotted afterthem with the drum banging against my thighs.
Was ever stronghold taken thus?
They went right into the town, the fourteen of them, into the mainstreet that led directly to the fort. The simple citizens gave back,stupefied, at sight of the tall, striding forms. Muffled Indians stoodlike statues as we passed, but these raised not a hand against us. Wherewere Hamilton, Hamilton’s soldiers and savages? It was as if we had comea-trading.
The street rose and fell in waves, like the prairie over which it ran.As we climbed a ridge, here was a little log church, the rude crosson the belfry showing dark against the sky. And there, in front of us,flanked by blockhouses with conical caps, was the frowning mass of FortSackville.
“Take cover,” said Williams, hoarsely. It seemed incredible.
The men spread hither and thither, some at the corners of the church,some behind the fences of the little gardens. Tom chose a great foresttree that had been left standing, and I went with him. He powdered hispan, and I laid down my drum beside the tree, and then, with an impulsethat was rare, Tom seized me by the collar and drew me to him.
“Davy,” he whispered, and I pinched him. “Davy, I reckon Polly Ann’d bekinder surprised if she knew where we was. Eh?”
I nodded. It seemed strange, indeed, to be talking thus at such a place.Life has taught me since that it was not so strange, for however aman may strive and suffer for an object, he usually sits quiet at theconsummation. Here we were in the door-yard of a peaceful cabin, theground frozen in lumps under our feet, and it seemed to me that the windhad something to do with the lightness of the night.
“Davy,” whispered Tom again, “how’d ye like to see the little feller tohome?”
I pinched him again, and harder this time, for I was at a loss foradequate words. The muscles of his legs were as hard as the strands ofa rope, and his buckskin breeches frozen so that they cracked under myfingers.
Suddenly a flickering light arose ahead of us, and another, and we sawthat they were candles beginning to twinkle through the palings of thefort. These were badly set, the width of a man’s hand apart. Presentlyhere comes a soldier with a torch, and as he walked we could see fromcrack to crack his bluff face all reddened by the light, and so nearwere we that we heard the words of his song:--
“O, there came a lass to Sudbury Fair, With a hey, and a ho, nonny-nonny! And she had a rose in her raven hair, With a hey, and a ho, nonny-nonny!”
“By the etarnal!” said Tom, following the man along the palings with themuzzle of his Deckard, “by the etarnal! ‘tis like shootin’ beef.”
A gust of laughter came from somewhere beyond. The burly soldier pausedat the foot of the blockhouse.
“Hi, Jem, have ye seen the General’s man? His Honor’s in a ‘igh temper,I warrant ye.”
It was fortunate for Jem that he put his foot inside the blockhousedoor.
“Now, boys!”
It was Williams’s voice, and fourteen rifles sputtered out a raggedvolley.
There was an instant’s silence, and then a score of voices raised inconsternation,--shouting, cursing, commanding. Heavy feet pounded on theplatform of the blockhouse. While Tom was savagely jamming in powder andball, the wicket gate of the fort opened, a man came out and ran to ahouse a biscuit’s throw away, and ran back again before he was shot at,slamming the gate after him. Tom swore.
“We’ve got but the ten rounds,” he said, dropping his rifle to his knee.“I reckon ‘tis no use to waste it.”
“The Willing may come to-night,” I answered.
There was a bugle winding a strange call, and the roll of a drum, andthe running continued.
“Don’t fire till you’re sure, boys,” said Captain Williams.
Our eyes caught sight of a form in the blockhouse port, there was aninstant when a candle flung its rays upon a cannon’s flank, and Tom’srifle spat a rod of flame. A red blot hid the cannon’s mouth, and behindit a man staggered and fell on the candle, while the shot crunched itsway through the logs of the cottage in the yard where we stood. And nowthe battle was on in earnest, fire darting here and there from theblack wall, bullets whistling and flying wide, and at intervals cannonbelching, their shot grinding through trees and houses. But our menwaited until the gunners lit their matches in the cannon-ports,--it wasno trick for a backwoodsman.
At length there came a popping right and left, and we knew that Bowmanand McCarty’s men had swung into position there.
An hour passed, and a shadow came along our line, darting from cover tocover. It was Lieutenant Bayley, and he sent me back to find the Coloneland to tell him that the men had but a few rounds left. I sped throughthe streets on the errand, spied a Creole company waiting in reserve,and near them, behind a warehouse, a knot of backwoodsmen, French,and Indians, lighted up by a smoking torch. And here was Colonel Clarktalking to a big, blanketed chief. I was hovering around the skirts ofthe crowd and seeking for an opening, when a hand pulled me off my feet.
“What ‘ll ye be afther now?” said a voice, which was Terence’s.
“Let me go,” I cried, “I have a message from Lieutenant Bayley.”
“Sure,” said Terence, “a man’d think ye had the Hair Buyer’s sculpin yere pocket. The Colonel is treaty-makin’ with Tobaccy’s Son, thegrreatest Injun in these parrts.”
“I don’t care.”
“Hist!” said Terence.
“Let me go,” I yelled, so loudly that the Colonel turned, and Terencedropped me like a live coal. I wormed my way to where Clark stood.Tobacco’s Son was at that moment protesting that the Big Knives werehis brothers, and declaring that before morning broke he would have onehundred warriors for the Great White Chief. Had he not made a treatyof peace with Captain Helm, who was even then a prisoner of the Britishgeneral in the fort?
Colonel Clark replied that he knew well of the fidelity of Tobacco’s Sonto the Big Knives, that Tobacco’s Son had remained stanch in the face ofbribes and presents (this was true). Now all that Colonel Clark desiredof Tobacco’s Son besides his friendship was that he would keep hiswarriors from battle. The Big Knives would fight their own fight. Tothis sentiment Tobacco’s Son grunted extreme approval. Colonel Clarkturned to me.
“What is it, Davy?” he asked.
I told him.
“Tobacco’s Son has dug up for us King George’s ammunition,” he said. “Gotell Lieutenant Bayley that I will send him enough to last him a month.”
I sped away with the message. Presently I came back again, upon anothermessage, and they were eating,--those reserves,--they were eating as Ihad never seen men eat but once, at Kaskaskia. The baker stood by withlifted palms, imploring the saints that he might have some compensation,until Clark sent him back to his shop to knead and bake again. The goodCreoles approached the fires with the contents of their larders in theirhands. Terence tossed me a loaf the size of a cannon ball, and another.
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“Fetch that wan to wan av the b’ys,” said he.
I seized as much as my arms could hold and scurried away to the firingline once more, and, heedless of whistling bullets, darted from man toman until the bread was exhausted. Not a one but gave me a “God blessyou, Davy,” ere he seized it with a great hand and began to eat inwolfish bites, his Deckard always on the watch the while.
There was no sleep in the village. All night long, while therifles sputtered, the villagers in their capotes--men, women, andchildren--huddled around the fires. The young men of the militia beggedClark to allow them to fight, and to keep them well affected he sentsome here and there amongst our lines. For our Colonel’s strengthwas not counted by rifles or men alone: he fought with his brain. AsHamilton, the Hair Buyer, made his rounds, he believed the town to be inpossession of a horde of Kentuckians. Shouts, war-whoops, and bursts oflaughter went up from behind the town. Surely a great force was there,a small part of which had been sent to play with him and his men. On thefighting line, when there was a lull, our backwoodsmen stood up behindtheir trees and cursed the enemy roundly, and often by these tauntspersuaded the furious gunners to open their ports and fire their cannon.Woe be to him that showed an arm or a shoulder! Though a casement belifted ever so warily, a dozen balls would fly into it. And at length,when some of the besieged had died in their anger, the ports were openedno more. It was then our sharpshooters crept up boldly to within thirtyyards of them--nay, it seemed as if they lay under the very walls of thefort. And through the night the figure of the Colonel himself was oftenseen amongst them, praising their markmanship, pleading with every mannot to expose himself without cause. He spied me where I had wormedmyself behind the foot-board of a picket fence beneath the cannon-portof a blockhouse. It was during one of the breathing spaces.
“What’s this?” said he to Cowan, sharply, feeling me with his foot.
“I reckon it’s Davy, sir,” said my friend, somewhat sheepishly. “Wecan’t do nothin’ with him. He’s been up and down the line twenty timesthis night.”
“What doing?” says the Colonel.
“Bread and powder and bullets,” answered Bill.
“But that’s all over,” says Clark.
“He’s the very devil to pry,” answered Bill. “The first we know he’ll beinto the fort under the logs.”
“Or between them,” says Clark, with a glance at the open palings. “Comehere, Davy.”
I followed him, dodging between the houses, and when we had got off theline he took me by the two shoulders from behind.
“You little rascal,” said he, shaking me, “how am I to look out for anarmy and you besides? Have you had anything to eat?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
We came to the fires, and Captain Bowman hurried up to meet him.
“We’re piling up earthworks and barricades,” said the Captain, “for thefight to-morrow. My God! if the Willing would only come, we could putour cannon into them.”
Clark laughed.
“Bowman,” said he, kindly, “has Davy fed you yet?”
“No,” says the Captain, surprised, “I’ve had no time to eat.”
“He seems to have fed the whole army,” said the Colonel. He paused.“Have they scented Lamothe or Maisonville?”
“Devil a scent!” cried the Captain, “and we’ve scoured wood andquagmire. They tell me that Lamothe has a very pretty force of redskinsat his heels.”
“Let McChesney go,” said Clark sharply, “McChesney and Ray. I’ll warrantthey can find ‘em.”
Now I knew that Maisonville had gone out a-chasing Captain Willing’sbrother,--he who had run into our arms. Lamothe was a noted Indianpartisan and a dangerous man to be dogging our rear that night. Suddenlythere came a thought that took my breath and set my heart a-hammering.When the Colonel’s back was turned I slipped away beyond the range ofthe firelight, and I was soon on the prairie, stumbling over hummocksand floundering into ponds, yet going as quietly as I could, turning nowand again to look back at the distant glow or to listen to the riflespopping around the fort. The night was cloudy and pitchy dark. Twicethe whirring of startled waterfowl frightened me out of my senses, butambition pricked me on in spite of fear. I may have gone a mile thus,perchance two or three, straining every sense, when a sound broughtme to a stand. At first I could not distinguish it because of my heavybreathing, but presently I made sure that it was the low drone of humanvoices. Getting down on my hands and knees, I crept forward, and feltthe ground rising. The voices had ceased. I gained the crest of a lowridge, and threw myself flat. A rattle of musketry set me shivering, andin an agony of fright I looked behind me to discover that I could not bemore than four hundred yards from the fort. I had made a circle. I layvery still, my eyes watered with staring, and then--the droning beganagain. I went forward an inch, then another and another down the slope,and at last I could have sworn that I saw dark blurs against the ground.I put out my hand, my weight went after, and I had crashed through acoating of ice up to my elbow in a pool. There came a second of sheerterror, a hoarse challenge in French, and then I took to my heels andflew towards the fort at the top of my speed.
I heard them coming after me, leap and bound, and crying out to oneanother. Ahead of me there might have been a floor or a precipice, asthe ground looks level at night. I hurt my foot cruelly on a frozen clodof earth, slid down the washed bank of a run into the Wabash, pickedmyself up, scrambled to the top of the far side, and had gotten awayagain when my pursuer shattered the ice behind me. A hundred yards more,two figures loomed up in front, and I was pulled up choking.
“Hang to him, Fletcher!” said a voice.
“Great God!” cried Fletcher, “it’s Davy. What are ye up to now?”
“Let me go!” I cried, as soon as I had got my wind. As luck would haveit, I had run into a pair of daredevil young Kentuckians who had morethan once tasted the severity of Clark’s discipline,--Fletcher Blountand Jim Willis. They fairly shook out of me what had happened, and thendropped me with a war-whoop and started for the prairie, I after them,crying out to them to beware of the run. A man must indeed be fleetof foot to have escaped these young ruffians, and so it proved. When Ireached the hollow there were the two of them fighting with a man in thewater, the ice jangling as they shifted their feet.
“What’s yere name?” said Fletcher, cuffing and kicking his prisoneruntil he cried out for mercy.
“Maisonville,” said the man, whereupon Fletcher gave a war-whoop andkicked him again.
“That’s no way to use a prisoner,” said I, hotly.
“Hold your mouth, Davy,” said Fletcher, “you didn’t ketch him.”
“You wouldn’t have had him but for me,” I retorted.
Fletcher’s answer was an oath. They put Maisonville between them, ranhim through the town up to the firing line, and there, to my horror,they tied him to a post and used him for a shield, despite hisheart-rending yells. In mortal fear that the poor man would be shotdown, I was running away to find some one who might have influence overthem when I met a lieutenant. He came up and ordered them angrily tounbind Maisonville and bring him before the Colonel. Fletcher laughed,whipped out his hunting knife, and cut the thongs; but he and Willishad scarce got twenty paces from the officer before they seized poorMaisonville by the hair and made shift to scalp him. This was merelybackwoods play, had Maisonville but known it. Persuaded, however, thathis last hour was come, he made a desperate effort to clear himself,whereupon Fletcher cut off a piece of his skin by mistake. Maisonville,making sure that he had been scalped, stood groaning and clapping hishand to his head, while the two young rascals drew back and stared ateach other.
“What’s to do now?” said Willis.
“Take our medicine, I reckon,” answered Fletcher, grimly. And theyseized the tottering man between them, and marched him straightway tothe fire where Clark stood.
They had seen the Colonel angry before, but now they were fairlywithered under his wrath. And he could have given t
hem no greaterpunishment, for he took them from the firing line, and sent them back towait among the reserves until the morning.
“Nom de Dieu!” said Maisonville, wrathfully, as he watched them go,“they should hang.”
“The stuff that brought them here through ice and flood is apt to boilover, Captain,” remarked the Colonel, dryly.
“If you please, sir,” said I, “they did not mean to cut him, but hewriggled.”
Clark turned sharply.
“Eh?” said he, “did you have a hand in this, too?”
“Peste!” cried the Captain, “the little ferret--you call him--he findme on the prairie. I run to catch him with some men and fall into thecrick--” he pointed to his soaked leggings, “and your demons, they fallon top of me.”
“I wish to heaven you had caught Lamothe instead, Davy,” said theColonel, and joined despite himself in the laugh that went up. Fallingsober again, he began to question the prisoner. Where was Lamothe?Pardieu, Maisonville could not say. How many men did he have, etc.,etc.? The circle about us deepened with eager listeners, who utteredexclamations when Maisonville, between his answers, put up his hand tohis bleeding head. Suddenly the circle parted, and Captain Bowman camethrough.
“Ray has discovered Lamothe, sir,” said he. “What shall we do?”
“Let him into the fort,” said Clark, instantly.
There was a murmur of astonished protest.
“Let him into the fort!” exclaimed Bowman.
“Certainly,” said the Colonel; “if he finds he cannot get in, he will beoff before the dawn to assemble the tribes.”
“But the fort is provisioned for a month,” Bowman expostulated; “andthey must find out to-morrow how weak we are.”
“To-morrow will be too late,” said Clark.
“And suppose he shouldn’t go in?”
“He will go in,” said the Colonel, quietly. “Withdraw your men, Captain,from the north side.”
Captain Bowman departed. Whatever he may have thought of these orders,he was too faithful a friend of the Colonel’s to delay their execution.Murmuring, swearing oaths of astonishment, man after man on the firingline dropped his rifle at the word, and sullenly retreated. The crack,crack of the Deckards on the south and east were stilled; not a barrelwas thrust by the weary garrison through the logs, and the place becamesilent as the wilderness. It was the long hour before the dawn. And aswe lay waiting on the hard ground, stiff and cold and hungry, talking inwhispers, somewhere near six of the clock on that February morning thegreat square of Fort Sackville began to take shape. There was the longline of the stockade, the projecting blockhouses at each corner withpeaked caps, and a higher capped square tower from the centre of theenclosure, the banner of England drooping there and clinging forlorn toits staff, as though with a presentiment. Then, as the light grew, theclose-lipped casements were seen, scarred with our bullets. The littlelog houses of the town came out, the sapling palings and the baretrees,--all grim and gaunt at that cruel season. Cattle lowed here andthere, and horses whinnied to be fed.
It was a dirty, gray dawn, and we waited until it had done its best.From where we lay hid behind log house and palings we strained our eyestowards the prairie to see if Lamothe would take the bait, until ourview was ended at the fuzzy top of a hillock. Bill Cowan, doubled upbehind a woodpile and breathing heavily, nudged me.
“Davy, Davy, what d’ye see!”.
Was it a head that broke the line of the crest? Even as I stared,breathless, half a score of forms shot up and were running madly for thestockade. Twenty more broke after them, Indians and Frenchmen, dodging,swaying, crowding, looking fearfully to right and left. And from withinthe fort came forth a hubbub,--cries and scuffling, orders, oaths, andshouts. In plain view of our impatient Deckards soldiers manned theplatform, and we saw that they were flinging down ladders. An officer ina faded scarlet coat stood out among the rest, shouting himself hoarse.Involuntarily Cowan lined his sights across the woodpile on this mark ofcolor.
Lamothe’s men, a seething mass, were fighting like wolves for theladders, fearful yet that a volley might kill half of them where theystood. And so fast did they scramble upwards that the men before themstepped on their fingers. All at once and by acclamation the fiercewar-whoops of our men rent the air, and some toppled in sheer terror andfell the twelve feet of the stockade at the sound of it. Then every manin the regiment, Creole and backwoodsman, lay back to laugh. The answerof the garrison was a defiant cheer, and those who had dropped, findingthey were not shot at, picked themselves up again and gained the top,helping to pull the ladders after them. Bowman’s men swung back intoplace, the rattle and drag were heard in the blockhouse as the cannonwere run out through the ports, and the battle which had held throughthe night watches began again with redoubled vigor. But there was morecaution on the side of the British, for they had learned dearly how theKentuckians could measure crack and crevice.
There followed two hours and a futile waste of ammunition, the lead fromthe garrison flying harmless here and there, and not a patch of skin orcloth showing.