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