Everything was quiet, and the Indians did not make the slightest sound. Charles and his mother secured the two fence gates with logs of wood, and then the mother went to her young children, leaving her sons orders to call her if they saw anything of the Indians. The day passed without the savages making a fresh attack on the settlement; but the greater on that account grew the widow's alarm, lest they should take advantage of the night to satiate their vengeance. Toward evening, she bade her sons lie down and sleep, so that they could keep awake during the night, while she kept guard in front of the house. The sun set and darkness was lying over the country, when Mrs. White and her two sons took their places behind the palisade, and carefully surveyed the open prairie. It was about nine o'clock, when they saw the light of a fire coming through the wood, rapidly grow larger, and presently appear on its outermost edge. Again the fearful yell was raised, with which the savages always accompany their attack, and the light moved from the forest over the grass. A dark object moved across the plain toward the house, and the light shone out on both sides of it. The object slowly drew nearer, and Mrs. White soon saw that it was a framework of bushes behind which the Indians were concealed, and pushing it before them. This leafy wall had advanced within twenty yards, when Charley and Ben fired at it, and the groans of the wounded were distinctly heard amid the yells of the assailants. For all that, the wall moved slowly forward, and in a few minutes leaned against the corner of the palisade, after which flames suddenly darted up and set the fence on fire. The savages had brought a heap of dry wood with them behind the screen, piled it up against the palisade and kindled it, after which they ran back about forty yards and lay down flat in the grass.