With the first rosy blush of the dawn, the little troop was in motion. At setting off D'Erlach gave ample directions for the anticipated conflict. His command was divided into three companies. From the first of these, three men were commissioned to deliver the fire of their pieces on the appearance of the Indians. The rest were to discharge one of the two loaded sections of cane attached to the matchlocks. The second and third were to do likewise. The effect of this arrangement would be to leave ten out of nineteen pieces undischarged, and ready for fatal use on the more daring approach of the savages. Their preparations, and the proposed _ruse_ were soon put to proof. It was about nine o'clock in the morning, when the company was about to enter a defile which led to an extensive tract of pines. At the entrance, on each hand, stretched a morass that seemed interminable. The opening to the pine forest seemed a narrow gorge, the jaws of which were densely occupied with a tangled thicket that seemed to baffle approach. D'Erlach saw the dangers which awaited him in such a defile. His three bands were made to march separately as they approached it, and very slowly. A moderate interval lay between them, which would enable them, while an enemy could only attack them singly, in turn to support each other. The judgment of our young lieutenant did not deceive him. On each side of this gorge, Oolenoe had posted his warriors. They occupied the shelter of the thicket on both hands. Their eagerness and impatience, increased by the slow progress of the Frenchmen, whom they regarded as only marching to the slaughter, lost them some of the advantages of this position. They showed themselves too soon. With a horrid howl the young warriors discharged their arrows from the covert, and then boldly dashed out among the pines. The Frenchmen were nerved for the struggle. Forewarned, they had been forearmed. There was no surprise. Coolly, the three select men delivered the fire of their pieces, and each with fatal effect. In the same moment the charged barrels of the cane were ignited and torn asunder by an explosion which was sufficiently gun-like to deceive the unpractised ear of the Indian. The savages answered this fire by a cloud of arrows, and began to advance. It was now that the remaining section of the division, which had retained their fire, delivered it with great precision and an effect similar to the former; those who had emptied their pieces on the previous occasion, contenting themselves with discharging a cane. By this time, the two other divisions, under D'Erlach, had pushed through the gorge, and were spreading themselves right and left, among the pines, in a situation to practice the same game with their assailants, which had been played so well by the foremost party. We must not follow the caprices of the battle. It is enough to say that, deceived by the apparent discharge of all the pieces of the Frenchmen, the Indians, headed by Oolenoe himself,