arms locked, and struggled against the
current. Though the river was over four feet deep, we got across with
few accidents.

Several men were swept off their feet, and some guns were lost, but we
arrived safely at the further shore.

We made a small raft, put our powder-horns on it, and pulled it to and
fro across the stream till all were carried over.

Scouts were sent ahead, and flanking parties were thrown out. We
advanced cautiously in three files. I did not like this kind of an
expedition, and said so to Martin, who was next to me.

"I can't bear this sneaking up on the Indians, and jumping on them in
the dead of night when they are sound asleep. I like a good square fight
of give and take."

"Don't be a fool, Ben. Those Indians have killed and scalped two of your
family. If you had lived on the frontier all your life as I have, you
would be glad to pay them back in their own coin, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth, scalp for scalp. I have had so many friends killed by them, good
quiet people, who never harmed any one. Almost every year, and sometimes
several times a year, I have gone with others to help drive these devils
away from some fort or town. And the sights that I have seen make me
hate the redskins worse than poison. And, Ben, you know enough of them
yourself. How many Rangers have been tormented by them and scalped?
Remember John McKeen! How he was stripped and tied to a tree; then the
red devils danced around him, howled at him, taunted him, and threw
their knives at him till he was full of holes from head to foot. Have
you forgotten what they did then? Put a pine splinter in every wound he
had, set them on fire and made a living torch of him."

[Sidenote: McKINSTRY'S SCORE]

"Yes, Martin, one does not forget such things, nor how they tortured
others, and then made them run the gauntlet, hacked at them with knives
and tomahawks till they fell, and then scalped them. They deserve to be
killed like snakes, but I don't like to do it. No matter how mean or
treacherous my enemy, I want a good stand-up fair fight. I am a soldier.
I am under orders, and I shall do the work; but I hate it."

"You needn't be squeamish, Ben. They are double our number, and if we
don't kill them by a surprise, they will kill us."

McKinstry had been listening, and said: "It's plain, Ben, that you have
never lived where there were Injuns. Your injuries are too far off. They
don't touch you. I have a score to pay that I have be