“It is not for you to grow faint-hearted at the very moment when I believe more can be done in behalf of the valley than if we were to defend ourselves behind a stockade for the next two months. I _shall_ come back, and with me all who go out, provided our first blow be successful.” “I will pray that God does not take you from us,” she sobbed, and then it was that I kissed her, running at full speed across the enclosure a moment later, lest I be tempted to linger by her side rather than take my chances among the red wolves. Around the stockade I went, calling down from the platforms Giles March, Daniel Hinchman, Oscar Stephenson, and all the lads I knew best, until I had withdrawn nine from the walls, and then in a few words I explained what we might do. Not one of them flinched; they were even more eager than I to make the venture, and we gathered by the small gate until that moment came when the firing seemed to be heaviest at the northern end of the stockade, when all slipped out, crouching to the very ground as we ran straight toward the mountain, an hundred paces or more, where good cover was found. Then off we went, northward, until believing we were behind the attacking force, after which we halted to make certain our muskets were primed. “Now, lads,” I whispered, “let us keep well together, for nothing can be gained by separating, and if so be we succeed in frightening the curs, we’ll keep at their heels even to the very border of their encampment.” “It is likely they are quartered in Forty Fort,” Miles Parker suggested, and I added: “So much the better if they are! Once we get them on the run, it wouldn’t be anything very wonderful if we could take that stockade, even though it is held by more than an hundred.” As a matter of course I had no hope we might do any such work as that, but I thought it would encourage some of my comrades to greater exertions if they fancied that was our goal. The halt lasted no longer than for me to say what I have here set down, and then we started in that direction from which the reports of the muskets came, moving cautiously at first, lest the villains hear us too soon, and then with a rush when it was possible to see the flashes of their weapons. “Now at them with a yell, but don’t fire till you are certain of hitting the mark!” I whispered, and forward we went, shouting at the full strength of our lungs, and coming upon the cowards from behind. They had no more than time to realize they were flanked, when we let drive a volley, and for every bullet a painted brute fell. We halted to reload, hoping to get in a second volley before they had fully recovered from the first alarm; but work as we might, it was impossible. When we were ready to fire again, not a moving thing could be seen, but far away in the distance could be heard the sound of their footsteps, or the swishing of the branches as they tore through the foliage in headlong flight, intent only on gaining the river.