Up from the rear rushed scores of Oolooz warriors.  Despite the vicious attack they crowded steadily up the hillside toward the crest on which stood Hugh and his practically unbroken front.  Through some sort of natural generalship they confined their charge to the hills on one side of the pass.  Ridgeway saw this with alarm.  He knew that they would eventually force their way to the top.  Yet the spears from above mowed down the climbing savages like tenpins, while their weapons did little or no damage.  With each distinct volley from above the advancing foe fell back, but rallied like heroes.  By this time hundreds of them were down; broad daylight made the pass look like a slaughter pen.

Ridgeway ran among his men, urging them to stand firm, to beat back the foe, and they responded with an ardor that was nothing less than fiendishness itself.  Their spears were unerringly thrown, but the supply was diminishing; it was the question of a very few minutes before they would be without ammunition.  Hugh’s hope lay in the possibility that the foe would soon retreat, believing itself unable to cope with an adversary whose numbers were unknown and who held such an advantageous position.

He soon saw that he would have to quickly withdraw his men from the hill after one of the temporary repulses, taking them to the trench at the mouth of the pass.  Almost as he was forming this plan, he realized that it would be necessary to carry it out at once.

Far down the pass, beyond his line, the enemy came swarming up the undefended slope, steep as it was, and some of the foremost were already scrambling over the last few feet intervening.  He yelled to the men, pointing to the danger spot and then toward the trenches, making a sign immediately thereafter to deliver a telling volley into the struggling ranks.

The savages seemed to understand, and he devoutly thanked God, for they sent a shower of spears into the horde and then dashed helter-skelter in the direction of the trenches where lay the king and two hundred men.  Wild yells of triumph came from behind, and long before the descent to the valley was reached by the fleeing white man and his dusky army, the Ooloozers were pouring into the tree-covered summit like so many sheep.

Down the hill sped Hugh and his men.  Pootoo saw them coming and waved his spear frantically.  As the retreating army rolled headlong into the trenches and behind the breastworks, the enemy arrived at the crest of the hill.  Breathlessly Hugh motioned for Pootoo to call the men from the opposite hill into action at once.

A volley of spears shot into and over the trenches, followed by a whirlwind of the long, slender messengers of death, several of them taking effect.  Pootoo’s men returned the volley from behind the breastworks, but the rampant chargers were not to be checked.  Up to the very edge of the trench they rushed, and from that moment it does not lie within the power of the writer to depict the horrors of the conflict in detail.  Hugh’s men, well protected and well armed, hurled death into the ranks, of the fearless enemy as it crowded to the high breastworks.  And out from the mouth of the pass poured the mass of Ooloozers who had not ascended the hill.