The fighting along the frontier lasted all through the summer and autumn of 1689. The winter brought respite from attack, and the settlers were beginning to indulge a sense of security when Hertel and his fifty men crept up to the little settlement of Salmon Falls, on the borders of New Hampshire and Maine. The attack was made in very similar fashion to that at Schenectady. The assailants burst in at night and at once began to apply tomahawk and torch. Thirty persons, men, women, and children indiscriminately, were slaughtered, and fifty-four were made prisoners. Hearing that a force of English from Piscataqua, now Portsmouth, was hastening to the scene, Hertel ordered a retreat. At Wooster River the pursuers caught up with him, but, taking up an advantageous position on the far side of that stream, he held them in check, killing several as they tried to cross the narrow bridge. At night he resumed his retreat. Some of the prisoners were given to his Indians to torture and kill. It was unfortunate that Father Thury was not present to inspire milder sentiments in these converts. Hertel was a born fighter, and when, upon reaching one of the Abenaquis villages on the Kennebec, he learnt that the Quebec party under M. de Portneuf had just passed south, he determined to follow them with thirty-six of his men, though he was obliged to leave behind him his eldest son who had been badly wounded in the fight at Wooster River. A number of Indian warriors joined the party at a point on the Kennebec; and on the 25th May, the united force, numbering between four and five hundred men, encamped in the forest not far from the English forts on Casco Bay. The principal of these was Fort Loyal, a palisaded place mounting eight cannon. The others were simple blockhouses. The several garrisons consisted of about one hundred men under the command of Captain Sylvanus Davis, whose narrative in the original--and most original--spelling has come down to us. The garrison first knew that an enemy was at hand by hearing the war-whoop of the Indians, who had just scalped an unfortunate Scotsman found wandering about in the neighbourhood, all unconscious of danger. Thirty volunteers at once sallied forth from the fort to meet the foe. They had not gone far when they received a volley at close range which killed half of them. Of the remaining half only four reached the fort, all wounded. During the night the men in the blockhouses crept into the fort, together with the inhabitants of some neighbouring houses. The place could not be carried by assault, so Portneuf determined to besiege it in due form by opening trenches and working his way in. The work was well and rapidly done, and Davis saw that surrender was inevitable. He inquired if there were any French in the attacking force, and, if so, whether they would give quarter. The answer was affirmative on both points. Davis inquired whether the quarter would include men, women, and children, wounded and