Let modern wives, who refuse to follow their husbands abroad, alleging the danger of the voyage or journey, or the unhealthiness of the proposed residence, or because the removal will separate them from the pleasures of fashion and society, contemplate the example of the wives of the defenders of this station.  These noble mothers, wives, and daughters, assuring the men that there was no probability that the Indians would fire upon them, offered to go out and draw water for the supply of the garrison, and that even if they did shoot down a few of them, it would not reduce the resources of the garrison as would the killing of the men.  The illustrious heroines took up their buckets, and marched out to the spring, espying here and there a painted face, or an Indian body crouched under the covert of the weeds.  Whether their courage or their beauty fascinated the Indians to suspend their fire, does not appear.  But it was so, that these generous women came and went until the reservoir was amply supplied with crater.  Who will doubt that the husbands of such wives must have been alike gallant and affectionate.

After this example, it was not difficult to procure some young volunteers to tempt the Indians in the same way.  As was expected, they had scarcely advanced beyond their station, before a hundred Indians fired a shower of balls upon them, happily too remote to do more than inflict slight wounds with spent balls.  They retreated within the palisades, and the whole Indian force, seeing no results from stratagem, rose from their covert and rushed towards the palisade.  The exasperation of their rage may be imagined, when they found every thing prepared for their reception.  A well aimed fire drove them to a more cautious distance.  Some of the more audacious of their number, however, ventured so near a less exposed point, as to be able to discharge burning arrows upon the roofs of the houses.  Some of them were fired and burnt.  But an easterly wind providentially arose at the moment, and secured the mass of the habitations from the further spread of the flames.  These they could no longer reach with their burning arrows.

The enemy cowered back, and crouched to their covert in the weeds; where, panther-like, they waited for less dangerous game.  They had divided, on being informed, that aid was expected from Lexington; and they arranged an ambuscade to intercept it, on its approach to the garrison.  When the reinforcement, consisting of forty-six persons, came in sight, the firing had wholly ceased, and the invisible enemy were profoundly still.  The auxiliaries hurried on in reckless confidence, under the impression that they had come on a false alarm.  A lane opened an avenue to the station, through a thick cornfield.  This lane was way-laid on either side, by Indians, for six hundred yards.  Fortunately, it was mid-summer, and dry; and the horsemen raised so thick a cloud of dust, that the Indians could fire only at random amidst