rifle spat a rod of flame. A red blot hid the cannon's mouth, and behind
it a man staggered and fell on the candle, while the shot crunched its
way through the logs of the cottage in the yard where we stood. And now
the battle was on in earnest, fire darting here and there from the black
wall, bullets whistling and flying wide, and at intervals cannon
belching, their shot grinding through trees and houses. But our men
waited until the gunners lit their matches in the cannon-ports,--it was
no trick for a backwoodsman.

At length there came a popping right and left, and we knew that Bowman
and McCarty's men had swung into position there.

An hour passed, and a shadow came along our line, darting from cover to
cover. It was Lieutenant Bayley, and he sent me back to find the Colonel
and to tell him that the men had but a few rounds left. I sped through
the 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 Clark
talking to a big, blanketed chief. I was hovering around the skirts of
the 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 sculp in
yere pocket. The Colonel is treaty-makin' with Tobacey's Son, the
grreatest Injun in these parrts."

"I don't care."