Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 03.djvu/268

 Here the Captain soon discovered he was in a hornet's nest, and so reported, but was unheeded. The Indians perceived at once the disparity in numbers from their spies, and that their opponents were few at that post, and they became bold accordingly. Captain Rains' men were so waylaid and killed that it became dangerous to walk even around the post, and finally two of his best men were waylaid and murdered in full view thereof. Desperate diseases often require desperate remedies, and as the preservation of the lives of his command required it, the following was resorted to by the Captain. The clothing of the last victims was made to cover a torpedo invented by him, and it was located at a small hammock and pond of water in a mile or two of the post where the Indian war parties had to get water.

Some day or two elapsed, when early one night the loud booming sound of the torpedo was heard, betraying the approach of a hostile party. Quickly Commander Rains and some dragoons who happened to be at the post rode to the spot; yet all was still and but an opossum found, which the Indians with tact, near where the torpedo had been, left to deceive. A yell indeed was heard, but the dragoons supposed it to be from the infantry which were arriving, and the latter thought it to come from the former. On returning to the post the facts of the yell appearing and the animal found, discovered to have been killed by a rifle bullet, early next morning Captain Rains with sixteen men, all which could be spared from garrison duty, for the dragoons had left, repaired to the hammock, some four or five acres in extent, and, spreading out his men as skirmishers, swept through it. The copse was surrounded by pines and was full of bushes and beds of needle palmettoes, impenetrable except next to the roots, where lay concealed some hundred and more infuriated savages, all ready for action. They were passed undiscovered until the soldiers had reached the pond, a small one of five or six yards across, and were examining the spot of the torpedo, which gave evidences of its destructive effects. A little dog which had accompanied the command here became furious, barking in the thicket of bushes and needle palmettoes. "What is that dog barking at?" said Captain Rains. "Nothing, sir," said one of the soldiers, "but a rabbit." Quickly he changed his place and again became furious, barking on the opposite side of the pond. "Sergeant Smith," said Captain Rains to his first sergeant near by, "see what that dog is barking at?" The poor fellow turned and advanced some four or five paces with the soldiers near