“The Lord of hosts is with us,” spoke Charles, in a solemn voice; “He will deliver the enemy into our hands.  Let us quit ourselves like men and be strong.  Let us do unto them even as they have done.  Let not the wicked escape us.  The Lord do so to me, and more also, if I reward not unto yon cruel chieftain his wickedness and his cruelties.  If he leave this place alive, let my life pay the forfeit!”

A murmur ran through the little group about him.  Each man grasped his weapon and stood still as a statue.  This little company had posted themselves upon a knoll which commanded the house of the bloodthirsty chief.  It was their business to see that he at least did not escape from the day of vengeance.

The moments seemed hours to those men waiting and watching; but they did not wait in vain.

A blaze of fire, a simultaneous crack of firearms, and a wild shout that was like one of already earned victory, and the assailants came charging down the hillside, and across the open fields, firing volley after volley upon the sleeping town, from which astonished and bewildered savages came pouring out in a dense mass, only to fall writhing beneath the hail of bullets from the foe who had surprised them thus unawares.

But there were in that community men trained in the arts of war, who were not to be scared into non-resistance by a sudden onslaught, however unexpected.  These men occupied log houses around that of their chieftain, and instead of rushing forth, they remained behind their walls, and fired steadily back at the enemy with a rapidity and steadiness which evoked the admiration of the Colonel himself.

Fiercely rained the bullets from rank to rank.  Indians yelled and whooped; the squaws rushed screaming hither and thither; the fight waxed hotter and yet more hot.  But all unknown to the Indians, and unseen by them in the confusion and terror, a file of stern, determined men was stealing towards the very centre of their town, creeping along the ground so as to avoid notice, and be safe from the hail of shot, but ever drawing nearer and nearer to that centre, where the defence was so courageously maintained.

Charles was the first to reach the log house against which the brushwood had been piled.  In the dim light of dawn his face could be seen wearing a look of concentrated purpose.  He had lately passed an open hut from whence the inhabitants had fled, and he carried in his hand a smouldering firebrand.  Now crouching against the place from which the hottest fire belched forth, he blew upon this brand till a tongue of flame darted forth, and in a moment more the brushwood around the house had begun to crackle with a sound like that made by a hissing snake before it makes the fatal spring.

Five minutes later and the ring of flame round the doomed house was complete.  The firing suddenly ceased, and there was a sound of blows and cries, turning to howls of fury as the inmates found that the door would not yield—­that they were trapped.