Page:The youth of Washington (1910).djvu/183

 For a little while the firing was hot. It lasted, however, but fifteen minutes. Then I saw an officer fall, and they gave up and cried for quarter as I ran down into their camp to stop the Indians from using their tomahawks and killing the wounded.

Van Braam told me afterwards that I exposed myself needlessly, but I thought this was necessary in order to give spirit and confidence to men who were many of them new to battle.

Our loss was small and that of the French great, since De Jumonville, who was in command, and ten men were killed and twenty-two taken, with some others hurt.

I remember to have written my brother Jack of this little fight, that the whistle of the bullets was pleasing to me; but I was then very young, and it was, after all, but a way of saying that the sense of danger, or risk, was agreeable.

On our way back through the woods I talked to La Force, who was in no wise cast down and told me that I should pay dear for my success, and how innocent they were, and a fine string of lies.

I was very well pleased to have caught this fellow, one of the most wily and trou