“After a lapse of time which seemed to me as an age, the youth re-appeared with a dozen young warriors, all armed and decked in their war paint.  They remained grouped round the entrance for a few minutes, while Waunangee changed his own dress, and Winnebeg provided me with a rifle, tomahawk and scalping-knife.  Thus accoutred I took the lead with the former, and after cautiously creeping through the encampment, passed along the skirt of the wood that almost overhung the river.  We moved off at a quick walk, but soon our pace increased to a half-run, so anxious were we all to get to the farm.

“We had not proceeded more than half-way when we saw a small boat, which I immediately distinguished as that belonging to the fishing-party, slowly descending the river.  The Indians simultaneously, and as if governed by one common instinct, dropped flat on the ground, as I supposed to remain unseen until the boat should come opposite to them, while I, uncertain by whom it was occupied, and anxious to ascertain, after whispering a few words to Waunangee, moved cautiously in advance along the shore.  When I had crept up about fifty yards, I could distinctly see that it was one of our men, and I immediately hailed to know who he was, and where the remainder of the party were.

“Scarcely had he answered ‘Collins,’ and commenced a few words of explanation of the cause of his being there and alone, when the forms of two Indians, which I fancied I had before detected creeping along the shore, regulating their stealthy progress by that of the boat, started into full height, and silently bounded towards me—­one a little in advance of the other.  The moment was critical.  They were not twenty paces from me, and I have often since wondered at the presence of mind I preserved.  It occurred to me that they would not commit the imprudence of using firearms so near the Fort, and that steel only would be resorted to by them.  This suggested my own course.  Throwing my rifle upon the beach in order that Collins, who was now pulling for the shore, might seize and use it as occasion should require, I grasped the scalping-knife in my left hand, and with my tomahawk in my right, did not wait for the attack, but rushed upon the foremost Indian, for I knew that my only chance of success lay in the killing or disabling of one before his comrade could come up.  At the same time, both to apprise Waunangee of my position, and to daunt my adversaries, I uttered one of these tremendous yells, you know I so well can imitate, and receiving the blow of his tomahawk upon my own, thrown up in true military guard, plunged my knife into his body with such suddenness and force, that on examining it afterwards, I found that at least half an inch of the tapering handle had followed the blade.  The savage fell dead without uttering a groan, a sight which, instead of checking the advance of his companion, rather urged him to revenge his fall.  He had now come up with me, brandishing his tomahawk, when I put myself again on my guard, purposing to use my knife as I had done before, but at the very moment when the descent of his weapon was expected by me, he was suddenly seized from behind, raised from his feet, and thrown upon the ground.  This was the act of Collins, who had gained the shore just after the first Indian fell, and had flown to my assistance.