While I stood within the shadow of the heavy timbers asking myself how we might strike a blow, my eyes fell upon a heap of shavings, left, no doubt, when one of the savages fitted a new handle to his tomahawk, and I said on the impulse of the moment to Daniel Hinchman: “Everything hereabout is dry as tinder, and if we could gather enough light stuff it might be possible to set fire to the logs. Then, in the excitement, I’m thinking it would be possible to shoot down a few more of the murderers.” It was as if he took this for a command, and in a twinkling all the party were gathering such inflammable material as was nearest at hand. Because there was close about so much with which to start a fire, no more than five minutes were spent before we had piled up against the logs, and stuffed into the crevices, a huge mass which extended along the wall for a distance of perhaps twenty feet. “If that doesn’t set the stockade on fire, it will make a big show,” Giles March said, with a chuckle of satisfaction. “What is to be done when the blaze has been started?” “We’ll make for the bushes along the river bank, and it will go hard if we don’t succeed in hurting half a dozen before they understand what is going on,” I said, and then came the question of lighting the dry stuff without spending too much time. It was Giles March who settled the matter by proposing that he and I stay behind while the others gained a hiding-place near the water’s edge, and then set off the pile at each end by flashing into it powder from our muskets. This we did, taking to our heels immediately tiny flames told that the burning powder had done its work, and we succeeded in joining our comrades before the savages were alarmed. Hardly more than fifty paces from where we were hidden a dozen or more of the curs stood looking toward the other shore, chattering like a lot of crows, and I motioned to my comrades that when the right moment came we would take the group for our targets. The flames leaped up quickly and furiously; but fully five minutes passed before a single cry was heard, and during that time the fire must have fastened on to the dry logs of the stockade. Then a shrill cry was heard from the fort; the curs we were watching wheeled suddenly around, cried out as if summoning some of their comrades near at hand, and would have run in the direction of the flames, but that we fired. How many fell I am unable to say, for I was bent only on reloading in the shortest possible space of time, and when my weapon was in condition for use once more, not an Indian could be seen. I counted that we had the wolves in a fine state of indecision, for it stood to reason they had taken all their belongings into the fort when John Butler marched out, and if they stopped to hunt for us everything might be burned, while, on the other hand, unless we were dealt with speedily, others would fall beneath our bullets.