CHAPTER XX THE LIBERTY TEA As Nathalie was ably seconded by the rest of the Liberty Cheerers, Van—he claimed he was a chump at story-telling—began the story of Lovewell, the Ranger, by saying that it was like one of the old Norse _Sagas_, for it had been told and retold by the mountaineer’s fireside for many generations. “When the white settlers were being harassed in the early times by marauding bands from the neighboring tribe of Sokoki Indians,” said the young soldier, “John Lovewell, a hardy ranger, set out from the Indian village of Pigswacket, now Fryeburg, near North Conway, and made his way, with forty-five of his followers, to Ossipee. Here they built a fort, and his scouts having found Indian tracks, they pushed farther on to a lake by whose shores they encamped for the night. The following morning, while trailing an Indian in the woods, Paugas, an Indian chieftain, whose name was a terror to every white settler on the frontier, stole up behind the rangers, to their encampment, which unfortunately they had left unguarded, and counted their packs. Finding that they were only thirty-four in number, the Indians placed themselves in ambush in the woods near, and when the rangers returned it was to be surrounded by the redmen, while the air was filled with their deadly fire and hideous warwhoops. “Here, by this little lake, under the very shadow of Mount Kearsarge, fifty miles from any settlement, was fought one of the bloodiest battles in Indian warfare, as the loyal rangers fought for their lives. They finally compelled the Indians to flee, but not before Lovewell and many of his men had been killed. The survivors made their way back to the fort at Ossipee, only to find it empty, for the guard, on hearing that Lovewell and his band had been killed, had deserted it. “After many incredible hardships,” continued Van, “twenty emaciated men finally reached the white settlement, many of them only to fall dead from wounds, or from hunger and exhaustion. But, practically, Lovewell’s band had won a great victory, for Paugas had been killed, and the remainder of the tribe forsook their strongholds among the foothills, and the white settlers were molested no more.” Van also related how a ranger, the only remaining one of three brothers who had set forth with Lovewell, when one of his brothers fell dead at his feet from the wounds inflicted by the savages, had started for their village, only to find his other brother’s body riddled with bullets.