Our eyes caught sight of a form in the blockhouse port, there was an instant when a candle flung its rays upon a cannon’s flank, and Tom’s rifle spat a rod of flame.  A red blot hid the cannon’s mouth, and behind it a man staggered and fell on the candle, while the shot crunched its way through the logs of the cottage in the yard where we stood.  And now the battle was on in earnest, fire darting here and there from the black wall, bullets whistling and flying wide, and at intervals cannon belching, their shot grinding through trees and houses.  But our men waited until the gunners lit their matches in the cannon-ports,—­it was no trick for a backwoodsman.

At length there came a popping right and left, and we knew that Bowman and McCarty’s men had swung into position there.

An hour passed, and a shadow came along our line, darting from cover to cover.  It was Lieutenant Bayley, and he sent me back to find the Colonel and to tell him that the men had but a few rounds left.  I sped through the streets on the errand, spied a Creole company waiting in reserve, and near them, behind a warehouse, a knot of backwoodsmen, French, and Indians, lighted up by a smoking torch.  And here was Colonel Clark talking to a big, blanketed chief.  I was hovering around the skirts of the crowd and seeking for an opening, when a hand pulled me off my feet.

“What’ll ye be afther now?” said a voice, which was Terence’s.

“Let me go,” I cried, “I have a message from Lieutenant Bayley.”

“Sure,” said Terence, “a man’d think ye had the Hair Buyer’s sculp in yere pocket.  The Colonel is treaty-makin’ with Tobacey’s Son, the grreatest Injun in these parrts.”

“I don’t care.”

“Hist!” said Terence.

“Let me go,” I yelled, so loudly that the Colonel turned, and Terence dropped me like a live coal.  I wormed my way to where Clark stood.  Tobacco’s Son was at that moment protesting that the Big Knives were his brothers, and declaring that before morning broke he would have one hundred warriors for the Great White Chief.  Had he not made a treaty of peace with Captain Helm, who was even then a prisoner of the British general in the fort?

Colonel Clark replied that he knew well of the fidelity of Tobacco’s Son to the Big Knives, that Tobacco’s Son had remained stanch in the face of bribes and presents (this was true).  Now all that Colonel Clark desired of Tobacco’s Son besides his friendship was that he would keep his warriors from battle.  The Big Knives would fight their own fight.  To this sentiment Tobacco’s Son grunted extreme approval.  Colonel Clark turned to me.

“What is it, Davy?” he asked.

I told him.

“Tobacco’s Son has dug up for us King George’s ammunition,” he said.  “Go tell Lieutenant Bayley that I will send him enough to last him a month.”

I sped away with the message.  Presently I came back again, upon another message, and they were eating,—­those reserves,—­they were eating as I had never seen men eat but once, at Kaskaskia.  The baker stood by with lifted palms, imploring the saints that he might have some compensation, until Clark sent him back to his shop to knead and bake again.  The good Creoles approached the fires with the contents of their larders in their hands.  Terence tossed me a loaf the size of a cannon ball, and another.