ting
fact that only a dozen hands manned the _Lady Washington_. Waiting for
the tide the next afternoon, Haswell and Coolidge, the two mates, were
digging clams on shore. Lopez, the black man, and seven of the crew
were gathering grass for the stock. Only three men remained on the
sloop with Captain Gray. Only two muskets and three or four cutlasses
had been brought ashore. Haswell and Coolidge had their belt pistols
and swords. The two mates approached the native village. The Indians
began tossing spears, as Haswell thought, to amuse their visitors.
That failing to inspire these white men, {221} rash as children, with
fear, the Indians formed a ring, clubbed down their weapons in
pantomime, and executed all the significant passes of the famous
war-dance. "It chilled my veins," says Haswell; and the two mates had
gone back to their clam digging, when there was a loud, angry shout.
Glancing just where the rowboat lay rocking abreast the hay cutters,
Haswell saw an Indian snatch at the cutlass of Lopez, the black, who
had carelessly stuck it in the sand. With a wild halloo, the thief
dashed for the woods, the black in pursuit, mad as a hornet.

Haswell went straight to the chief and offered a reward for the return
of the sword, or the black man. The old chief taciturnly signalled for
Haswell to do his own rescuing.

Theft and flight had both been part of a design to scatter the white
men. "They see we are ill armed," remarked Haswell to the other.
Bidding the boat row abreast with six of the hay cutters, the two mates
and a third man ran along the beach in the direction Lopez had
disappeared. A sudden turn into a grove of trees showed Lopez
squirming mid a group of Indians, holding the thief by the neck and
shouting for "help! help!" No sooner had the three whites come on the
scene, than the Indians plunged their knives in the boy's back. He
stumbled, rose, staggered forward, then fell pierced by a flight of
barbed arrows. Haswell had only time to see the hostiles fall on his
body like a pack of wolves on prey, when more Indians {222} emerged
from the rear, and the whites were between two war parties under a
shower of spears. A wild dash was made to head the fugitives off from
shore. Haswell and Coolidge turned, pistols in hand, while the rowboat
drew in. Another flight of arrows, when the mates let go a charge of
pistol shot that dropped the foremost three Indians. Shouting for the
rowers to fire, H