“Now for it!” I cried when my musket was loaded. “We must never let them off without one more shot, and if it be that we can prevent their taking to the canoes, we’ll give them a taste of being hunted down like wild beasts, as were our people!” If it had not been that Master Bartlett supported us nobly at the very moment when he could do the most good, we would have failed in giving the brutes the lesson I had planned. We were hardly more than started on our second charge when yells and screams, accompanied by musket-shots, rang out just ahead of us, and Giles March cried, exultantly: “Our people in the stockade are lending a hand, and it will go hard if we don’t pepper a dozen or more before they can put off!” When we came into the open again it was to see our comrades standing near where a dozen or more canoes were hauled up on the shore, firing at a dark mass in the distance, which we knew to be the panic-stricken murderers. “Let them have it, lads!” I shouted, discharging my weapon, and, while the others were following my example, I ran forward until finding Master Bartlett. “The dose hasn’t been as heavy as I reckoned on; but there is yet time to increase it,” I said, hurriedly. “We will take two of these canoes, and do you carry the others into the stockade.” “Where are you going, lad?” the old man asked, as if about to make some protest. “To the other side, where we can pick off the curs as they swim across, and to Forty Fort, mayhap,” and I pushed off one of the light craft, shouting for my comrades to join me. Master Bartlett stood by till the last one of us was in the canoes, and then, as we paddled swiftly away, he cried: “Give it to ’em hot, lads; but don’t take too many chances, for we’ll soon be needing you here!” CHAPTER XIX. FREEING THE VALLEY I believed that now, if ever, was the time when we might give John Butler’s curs such a drubbing they would be glad to follow their leader, and I also realized that if we could not strike a heavy blow on this night, then might we expect to get it hot from then on. We had already shown the brutes they were not to have everything their own way, as had been the case since they first began the bloody work; but if we failed to follow up our advantage, it went without saying that they would be upon us next day burning to avenge the death of their fellows. All this I said to my comrades as we paddled swiftly up-stream, working gradually toward the other shore, and Giles March replied, grimly: “It is better to fight one tough battle than half a dozen mild ones wherein neither side gains an advantage. If you are so minded, Jonathan Ogden, I will follow you even into Forty Fort.”