pent a good night in their camp, little dreaming
how near to them was the enemy. On the morning of the twenty-eighth of
December they resumed their march in good spirits.

The Indians had left the swamp and hidden themselves in a pine barren,
near which the roadway wound. On one side was a deep swamp; on the
other, a thin pine forest with a swamp beyond it. They found hiding
places behind trees or on the ground sheltered by the saw palmetto and
brush.

From their hiding places the Indians saw the advance guard come into
sight, reach, and pass them. Still Micanopy did not fire the signal
shot. Now the main division was coming with Major Dade on horseback at
the head. On marched the soldiers with unwavering tramp, tramp. The
warriors crouched with muskets ready. Micanopy fired and Jumper raised
the yell. Instantly the green waste was awake with the flash and bang of
muskets, with death cries and savage yells. A white smoke hid the scene
for a moment. When it cleared away, the road was strewn with the dead
and dying. The Indians having reloaded their guns, rushed from their
hiding places to finish their work.

[Illustration: FLORIDA SWAMP]

Some of Dade's men sprang to the thicket to seek refuge behind trees.
They were followed and shot down. Others caught their feet in the heavy
stems of the palmetto and, stumbling, fell an easy prey to their
pursuers. The officers who had escaped the first fire did their best to
rally the men. The cannon was brought into action and added its roar to
the din of battle. But its balls went over the heads of the Indians and
they succeeded in shooting the gunners before they could do any harm.

The contest seemed over. The warriors were scattered in pursuit of
fugitives or busy scalping the dead, when a negro brought word to Jumper
that a number of the soldiers had collected and were building a fort of
logs with the cannon to protect them. Jumper raised the yell and called
together his Indians for a charge on the little company of brave men who
were making their last stand behind tree trunks placed on the ground in
the form of a triangle. The soldiers had exhausted their powder and were
able to offer only a feeble resistance to the savages, who shot them
down without mercy.

The Indians carried off their own dead and wounded--three dead and five
wounded. But they left the bodies of Dade's men to tell their own story
to those who should find them. So well were the commands of Osceola
he