I next ordered Cæsar, a free Negro fellow, to bring a boat. Seeing him hesitate, I swore I would shoot him the moment I got across. He crossed a hundred yards below the Indians, and Jim Smith, Jerry Austill, and myself got in. I made Cæsar paddle within forty paces, when all three of us levelled our guns, and all missed fire! As the two boats approached, one of them hurled his scalping-knife at me. It pierced the boat through and through, just grazing my thigh as it passed. The next moment the canoes came in contact. I leaped up, placing one of my feet in each boat. At the same instant the {191}foremost warrior levelled his rifle at my breast. It flashed in the pan. As quick as lightning, he clubbed it, and aimed at me a furious blow, which I partially parried, and, before he could repeat it, I shivered his skull with my gun. In the mean time an Indian had struck down Jerry, and was about to despatch him, when I broke my rifle over his head. It parted in two places. The barrel Jerry seized, and renewed the fight. The stock I hurled at one of the savages. Being then disarmed, Caesar handed me his musket and bayonet. "Finding myself unable to keep the two canoes in juxtaposition, I resolved to bring matters to an issue, and leaped into the Indian boat. My pirogue, with Jerry, Jim, and Caesar, floated off. Jim fired, and slightly wounded the Indian next to me. I now stood in the centre of their canoe--two dead at my feet--a wounded savage in the stern, who had been snapping his piece at me during the fight, and four powerful warriors in front. The first one directed a furious blow at me with his rifle; it glanced upon the barrel of my musket, and I staved the bayonet through his body. As he fell, the next one repeated the attack. A shot from Jerry Austill pierced his heart. Striding over them, the next sprung at me with his tomahawk. I killed him with the bayonet, and his corpse lay between me {192}and the last of the party. I knew him well--Tar-cha-chee, a noted wrestler, and the most famous ball-player of his clan. He paused a moment in expectation of my attack, but, finding me motionless, he stepped backward to the bow of the canoe, shook himself, gave the war-whoop of his tribe, and cried out, 'Sam tholocco _Iana dahmaska, ia-lanes-tha--lipso--lipso--lanestha. Big Sam! I am a man--I am coming--come on!_' As he said this, with a terrific yell he bounded over the dead body of his comrade, and directed a blow at my head with his rifle, which dislocated my left shoulder. I dashed the bayonet into him. It glanced round his ribs, and the point hitching to his back-bone, I pressed him down. As I pulled the weapon out, he put his hands upon the sides of the canoe and endeavored to rise, crying out, '_Tar-cha-chee is a man. He is not afraid to die!_' I drove my bayonet through his heart. I then turned to the wounded villain in the stern, who snapped his rifle at me as I advanced, and had been snapping during the whole conflict.