This was the instant for which Croghan had waited. He opened the
porthole and unmasked his exactly trained cannon. It enfiladed the
assailants, sweeping them at a distance of thirty feet; slugs and
grapeshot hissed, spreading fan rays of death! By the flash of the
re-loaded six-pounder, we saw the trench filled with dead and wounded.

The besiegers turned.

Croghan's sweating gunners swabbed and loaded and fired, roaring like
lions.

The Indians, of whom there were nearly a thousand, were not in the
charge, and when retreat began they went in panic. We could hear calls
and yells, the clatter of arms, and a thumping of the earth; the strain
of men tugging cannon ropes; the swift withdrawal of a routed force.

Two thousand more Indians approaching under Tecumseh, were turned back
by refugees.

Croghan remarked, as we listened to the uproar, "Fort Stephenson can
hardly be called untenable against heavy artillery."

Then arose cries in the ditch, which penetrated to women's ears. Neither
side was able to help the wounded there. But before the rout was
complete, Croghan had water let down in buckets to relieve their thirst,
and ordered a trench cut under the pickets of the stockade. Through this
the poor wretches who were able to crawl came in and surrendered
themselves and had their wounds dressed.

By three o'clock in the morning not a British uniform glimmered red
through the dawn. The noise of retreat ended. Pistols and muskets
strewed the ground. Even a sailboat was abandoned on the river, holding
military stores and the clothing of officers.

"They thought General Harrison was coming," laughed Croghan, as he sat
down to an early breakfast, having relieved all the living in the trench
and detailed men to bury the dead. "We have lost one man, and have
another under the surgeon's hands. Now I'm ready to appear before a
court-martial for disobeying orders."

"You mean you're ready for your immortal page in history."

"Paragraph," said Croghan; "and the dislike of poor little boys and
girls who will stick their fists in their eyes when they have to learn
it at school."

Intense manhood ennobled his long, animated face. The President
afterwards made him a lieutenant-colonel, and women and his superior
officers praised him; but he was never more gallant than when he said:

"My uncle, George Rogers Clark, would have undertaken to hold this fort;
and by heavens, we were bound to try it!"

The other young off