silent town.

"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. N