en wiping off for
the past thirty years. Here's my tally-stick. Look at the notches."

He pulled at a string that was round his neck, and showed me a little
stick with seventeen notches in it.

"I have killed that number of Indians. Every notch I have added made my
heart feel lighter. Every chance I have to kill a St. Francis Indian,
awake or asleep, makes me happy. I want to see the whole tribe wiped off
the earth."

The land on this side of the river was higher than the region through
which we had been travelling, and we were not so much troubled by
mosquitoes, which had nearly driven us crazy in the swamps.

The clear, crisp air dried our clothes before nightfall, and we slept
sound, breathing in the clean smell of the fir balsams.

On the next day, the twenty-second, after we left Crown Point, we made a
cautious advance. Rogers halted us and climbed a tree. He said that he
could see the village about three miles off.

Rogers went ahead with Lieutenant Turner and Ensign Avery to inspect the
village, and we lay down and waited. The moon was about three-quarters
full. He returned at two in the morning, and said:--

"We crawled up close to their village. The Indians are having a great
frolic. They have a keg of rum and are drinking it, and are dancing
round the fires. I think there must be a wedding going on. They will
sleep sound."

[Sidenote: THEY ATTACK THE VILLAGE]

At three o'clock we crept up to within five hundred yards of the
village, and laid aside our packs and prepared for the fight. We had one
hundred and forty-two men, all told.

We lay concealed in the forest till the Indians were asleep. Rogers
divided us into three parties, and about an hour before daylight ordered
us to attack the village on three sides. The St. Lawrence River was on
the fourth side. We rushed into the village, through its lanes, kicking
the yelping dogs aside, and stationed ourselves before the huts. Above
the doors were poles, from which dangled rows of scalps, as if they were
garlands of flowers.

I stood by the door of a hut, and as an Indian came out I shot him; and
when the next appeared, with a dazed, frightened look on his face, I
brained him with the butt of my gun, and then pulled out my hatchet and
chopped away at them as they ran by. Martin, Edmund, and Amos were near
me. Sometimes several Indians made a rush, and we closed up and fought
them.

It was cruel, bloody butchery. But the sight of the poles with the