Now, if you have patience to follow you will learn that they ultimately met the very thing which you expect—­which they must have expected.

“Thus far the scouts had seen no human footprints; but on the twentieth of February they found a lately abandoned wigwam, and following the snowshoe tracks that led from it—­” Right into the lion’s jaw, as it were.  Perhaps they were anxious to be shot to get out of their misery—­“at length saw smoke rising at a distance out of the gray forest.”  They saw their finish, and their hearts were filled with joy.  “The party lay close till two o’clock in the morning; then, cautiously approaching, found one or more wigwams, surrounded them, and killed all the inmates, ten in number.”  They were to pay dear for this, as anyone could have told them.  “They brought home the scalps in triumph, ... and Lovewell began at once to gather men for another hunt....  At the middle of April he had raised a band of forty-six.”  One of the number was Seth Wyman, ... a youth of twenty-one, graduated at Harvard College, in 1723, and now a student of theology.  Chaplain though he was, he carried a gun, knife and hatchet like the others, and not one of the party was more prompt to use them....  They began their march on April 15th.”  After leaving several of their number by the way for various causes, we find thirty-seven of them on the night of May 7th near Fryeburg lying in the woods near the northeast end of Lovewell’s pond.

“At daybreak the next morning, as they stood bareheaded, listening to a prayer from the young chaplain, they heard the report of a gun, and soon after an Indian....  Lovewell ordered his men to lay down their packs and advance with extreme caution.”  Why this caution?  “They met an Indian coming towards them through the dense trees and bushes.  He no sooner saw them than he fired at the leading men.”  Naturally.  We should have said “leading targets.”  “His gun was charged with beaver shot and he severely wounded Lovewell and young Whiting; on which Seth Wyman shot him dead, and the chaplain and another man scalped him.”  As yet they had only entered the lion’s den.  “And now follows one of the most obstinate and deadly bush-fights in the annals of New England....  The Indians howled like wolves, yelled like enraged cougars, and made the forest ring with their whoops....  The slaughter became terrible.  Men fell like wheat before the scythe.  At one time the Indians ceased firing; ... they seemed to be holding a ‘pow-wow’; but the keen and fearless Wyman crept up among the bushes, shot the chief conjurer, and broke up the meeting.  About the middle of the afternoon young Fry received a mortal wound.  Unable to fight longer, he lay in his blood, praying from time to time for his comrades in a faint but audible voice.”  One, Keys, received two wounds, “but fought on till a third shot struck him.”  He declared the Indians would not get his scalp.  Creeping along the sandy edge of the pond, he chanced to find a stranded canoe,