Page:Yule Logs.djvu/295

Rh, encouraging his neighbours, and taking all due precaution against the enemy.

The country over which Josh and his companions had to travel to Mount Hope was so well known to the former that he was able to lessen the distance by short cuts across country. For the most part it was thickly wooded, but sometimes they had to skirt vast tracts of swampy land overgrown with reeds, bulrushes, and long grass. Josh knew that such places were usually resorted to by Indians when they wished to waylay their enemies; he therefore kept a sharp look-out.

Within a few miles of the Mount they came upon a great lake. On one side was an almost impenetrable forest, and on the other an immense swamp.

Unfortunately it was evening, and as there was no path they dismounted and were leading their horses, when suddenly a wild unearthly yell rose on the still air, and a horde of Indians came scrambling up the banks of the lake; in a second they were upon the English.

"Run!" shouted Josh to his companions, "it's your only chance." He, slipping his horse's bridle, placed himself with his back to a tree and fired into the enemy, to keep them, if only for a few minutes, at bay. He knew from the first that resistance was hopeless. The savages literally swarmed upon them. He saw two of his three men fall, their skulls cloven; then an Indian, taller than his fellows, with bigger feathers on his head, felled him to the ground. He did not even then lose consciousness, expecting to feel the sharp scalp-knife do its cruel work, when, to his surprise, he was dragged by the hair of his head out of the fray, hoisted on to one of the horses, an Indian sprang up behind him uttering a loud whoop, and they were scouring through the forest out into the open plain. The natural instinct of self-preservation made Josh cling desperately to the horse's mane, as the animal, terrified by the Indian's savage yells, leaped through the thick