WHEN Garff and his men reached the Lake Village, they found the people armed and ready. The Chief of the Lake People, whose name was Bran, came out to meet Garff, and he called him and some of his men into the council that they might make a plan of war. And he told Garff that his spies had seen the army of the Warriors muster at daybreak on the river bank. They had crossed in canoes, and had built a stockade on this side of the water, and dragged the canoes ashore. They had been seen fixing long poles to the canoes, which were light ones made of wicker and hide; and it was thought that they meant to carry some of the canoes over the hills to the lake, so that one band of their men might attack the island from the canoes, while another band should try to force the gangway. Then one of the old men stood up and said: “Surely this will be their plan! But how can we meet them better than here on our island, where the water and our good wall are our defence? Our fathers met their foes thus and beat them back. What is this talk that I hear of going forth to battle in the woods? If we leave our defences, we are lost.” Then Bran said that it was the wish of some of the younger men to march out and try to take their enemies by surprise in the woods, and that he himself was in favour of this plan. “Surely,” said Garff, “that is the right plan. If you had meant to stay at home and fight behind walls, you had not needed help from us; and we, too, might have taken our folks and our cattle and shut ourselves up in our hill-fort. No, leave some of your older men that can yet bear arms to stay by the village and defend it if need be. But let the rest of us go out and fall upon these Warriors suddenly in the woods; and let some of the young men go and watch the fords, to see that none of the enemy cross the river elsewhere and take us in the rear; but let us start without delay.” So they marched at once; and since Bran was an old man and less skilled in warfare than Garff, he gave the command of all the men to him, and he himself marched behind. When they had gone some distance through the forest, and had come to an open place upon the hill-side, Garff made the men halt and hide themselves in a thicket at the edge of the wood; and he sent Tig with two others to spy for the advance of the enemy. Tig and his companions crept away through the bushes and were gone for some time. At length they came back swiftly and cautiously, with news that they had seen a large band of the enemy in the wood below, all fully armed with bows and slings, and spears and axes and clubs, and carrying four canoes in their rear. So Garff set all his men in battle-line, and bade them lie still until the enemy should be well out into the open ground. Then, at a signal, they were to leap up suddenly and shoot a flight of arrows and rush upon the Warriors, every one marking his man.