listening by the farm-house gate, thought they had never heard such
sweet music in all their lives.

Only a quarter of a mile of very rough ground was travelled before the
children found themselves trotting along in the "nearer way" they had
tried to find the night before; and in an hour's time, after being much
kissed and very tenderly scolded, they were bathed and lying in their
clean, sweet beds, and Ted was sleepily saying to himself, "This is
nicer'n em'grants, after all."

OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES.

BY CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.

No. VI.

LOVEWELL'S FIGHT WITH THE PIGWACKETS.

At the southern base of the White Mountains, where the river Saco winds
through green meadows, was the home of the Pigwacket Indians. Their
chief was Paugus. During the years of peace he visited the English in
Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and was well acquainted with
the settlers, but he liked the French better.

The Jesuit Father Rale, who had converted the Kennebec Indians, made his
influence felt over all the surrounding tribes, and Paugus, through his
influence, sided with the French. He could always obtain guns, powder,
and balls at Quebec and Montreal in exchange for furs.

From their wigwams on the Saco, it was easy for the Pigwackets to go
down that stream to the settlements in Maine, or going southwest to the
"Smile of the Great Spirit," as they called Lake Winnipiseogee, they
could descend the Merrimac to the settlements in Massachusetts.

In 1724 the Pigwackets killed two men at Dunstable. When the alarm was
given, eleven men started after them, but the Indians discovering them,
shot all but two, took their scalps, and returned to their wigwams on
the Saco, where they held a great feast over the successful raid,
dancing and howling through the night, and boasting of what they would
do on the next raid.

"I will give L100 for every Indian scalp," said the Governor of
Massachusetts.

The offer of such a bounty stimulated Captain John Lovewell, of
Dunstable, who started with eight men. It was midwinter, but the snow,
cold, and hardship did not deter the intrepid men, who made their way up
the valley of the Merrimac, and eastward to the country of the
Pigwackets. The sun was going down, on the 20th of February, when
Captain Lovewell discovered a smoke rising above the trees. He waited
till midnight, when, creeping forward alone, he could see ten Indians
asleep by a fire on the shore of a pond. He went