There was no need to search for the foe; the savages were laughing and chattering like a lot of baboons, so that even in the darkest night might we have gone directly toward them without making any mistake, and since Stephen Morley continued on around the stockade, keeping close within the denser shadows of the walls, we came so near to the red wolves that it seemed almost as if I could have thrust out my hand and touched the nearest without leaving my tracks. They numbered, I judged in the first hurried glance, not less than ten or twelve, and were clustered around a woman, who was kneeling on the ground before them begging for mercy, and three children, one of whom a painted brute held high in his hand, as if to dash it to the ground. I saw Stephen Morley level his musket, and knew full well what target he aimed at, therefore did I follow his example, save that I counted to send my bullet into the heart of the wretch who stood nearest the woman. There was no need that we await the word of command. As if our little party had been standing shoulder to shoulder, and could understand by the sense of touch what was being done, our muskets were discharged in a volley that rang out as one report. Four of the savages fell, and it was as if they had hardly reached the ground before we were upon the others, striking with our clubbed muskets right and left, knowing that upon the swiftness of our movements depended the life of this poor woman and her children, for they would have plunged their weapons into the helpless ones before turning to meet us had we given them time. It was the suddenness of our first attack, and the quickness with which we followed it up, that prevented them from making any attempt at fighting, more particularly since they were all ignorant as to how much of a force had fallen upon them. In a twinkling those who were left alive turned and fled like the curs that they were, leaving behind them five of their number, while it is safe to promise that more than one of those who ran carried with them bullets that had been moulded by the women of Wyoming Valley. “Pick up the youngsters and make for the fort,” Master Bartlett said, sharply, seizing the arm of the woman, who yet remained on her knees as if paralyzed with fear, and I venture to say that one could not have counted sixty from the time we left the stockade until we were inside it once more and the gates barred, with the woman and her three children in safety. “Why did you beat a retreat when we were having the best of it?” I asked of Master Bartlett, feeling aggrieved because he had turned tail when there was a possibility, as it seemed to me, of inflicting further injury upon the enemy. “Because it stands us in hand to keep them in ignorance of our numbers,” he replied. “If, peradventure, they have learned how weak a force we are, then can we count on seeing not only those who have retreated, but an hundred others, mayhap, in front of this stockade by sunrise.”