"I'm in favor of the ambush. You see, they're coming down here with a force large enough to divide, and then attack every house at once. The Mohawk says there are seventy Delawares. These Delawares were driven off from here: they know every inch of the ground, every house and every man, and can guide the rest. It would be a great backer ter 'em when they expected ter find us all in our houses unprepared, and ter wipe us out as easy as a man would snuff a candle, and pay off old scores, ter be ambushed themselves, and met with a rattling volley; and they might break, and give it up." "But, neighbors, that's all _perhaps_: there's another thing that ain't. One hundred nor five hundred Indians can't drive us out of this fort; and in it our families are safe if we are there to defend it. If we were all single men, I'd say, Ambush 'em; let's have a right up-and-down fight, and try their mettle: and I'm for it now, if we can reduce the risk for the women and children in any way." "The greatest difficulty 'bout an ambush," said Blanchard, "is, we don't know which way they'll come. The Mohawk told Honeywood they would start from their town Kittanning; but whether they'll take either of the war-paths, or come through the woods where there is no path, we can't tell." "Whichever way they come in the daytime," said Armstrong, "when at night they come near to us, they'll take the path that leads direct to the ford. There's so many of 'em, they'll be bold: they won't hesitate to take the water at the regular fording-place, because they know the country is all their own, and that they've killed or driven off all but us." "Why not lay an ambush there, where we cannot be flanked, because we shall have the stream at our backs, nor be so far away but what we can fall back and reach the fort?" "We must of course fall back if the Indians don't," said Grant; "and then we shall be exposed to their fire while we are crossing the river, when they'll be under cover, and probably but very few of us would get across. I should like to have one slap at 'em. They'll take very good care to keep out of rifle-shot of the fort; and all we can do will be to stand on the platforms and grind our teeth, while they are burning our houses and destroying our crops."