There were in all five guns; Sarah Ferguson loaded for him, while he kept up a continual fire, aiming at the Indians wherever one could be seen. Determined to effect their object of forcing an entrance, some of the savages came very near the house, keeping under cover of an outhouse in which Brown and his wife had taken refuge, not being able, on the alarm, to get into the house. They had crept into a corner and were crouched there close to the boarding. One of the Indians, coming up, leaned against the outside, separated from them only by a few boards, the crevices between which probably enabled them to see him. Mrs. Brown proposed to take a sword that lay by them and run the savage through the body, but her husband refused; he expected death, he said, every moment, and did not wish to go out of the world having his hands crimsoned with the blood of any fellow creature. 'Let me die in peace,' were his words, 'with all the world.' Joanna, though in the same peril, could not respond to the charitable feeling. 'If I am to die,' she said, 'I should like first to send some of the redskins on the journey. But we are not so sure we have to die; don't you hear the crack of Melbury's rifle? He holds the house. I warrant you that redskin looked awfully scared as he leaned against the corner here. We could have done it in a moment.' "Mrs. McKenny, meanwhile, having failed to get into her house, had been again seized by the Indians, and, desperately regardless of her own safety, was doing all in her power to help her besieged friends. She would knock the priming out of the guns carried by the savages, and when they presented them to fire, would throw them up, so that the discharge might prove harmless. She was often heard to say, afterwards, that all fear had left her, and she thought only of those within the building, for she expected for herself neither deliverance nor mercy. Melbury continued to fire whenever one of the enemy appeared; they kept themselves, however, concealed, for the most part, behind trees or the outhouse. Several were wounded by his cool and well-directed shots, and at length, tired of the contest, the Indians retreated, carrying Mrs. McKenny with them. She now resisted with all her strength, preferring instant death to the more terrible fate of a captive in the hands of the fierce Cherokees. Her refusal to go forward irritated her captors, and when they had dragged her about half a mile, near a rock upon the plantation now occupied by John Culp, she received a second blow with the tomahawk which stretched her insensible upon the ground. When after some time consciousness returned, she found herself lying upon the rock, to which she had been dragged from the spot where she fell. She was stripped naked, and her scalp had been taken off. By degrees the knowledge of her condition, and the desire of obtaining help came upon her. She lifted up her head, and looking around, saw the wretches who