scalps of English men, women, and children hanging from them made us mad
with rage, and we killed the Indians like rats as they dashed out of
their huts. Some reached the canoes, but were followed and cut down. Few
escaped. Some squaws were killed too. We were all mixed up. It was
impossible to spare them. They fought like wildcats with knives and
hatchets, and we had to kill them or be killed ourselves.

By sunrise the bloody work was over. Almost all the Indians had been
slain. As we looked round and saw nearly six hundred English scalps
dangling in front of the huts, we felt no sorrow for what we had done.

Still, it was a grim, dreadful piece of work. The dead Indians lay
around in the lanes between the huts, in some places in heaps,
stiffening in death, smeared with blood, and the Stockbridge Indians
were already at work scalping them.

[Sidenote: A GRIM PIECE OF WORK]

We ourselves were covered with blood, and looked like butchers from the
shambles. It was not all Indian blood. They were not lambs, and gave us
many a wound before we got the better of them. Edmund and Amos came to
me.

"How did you get through it, Ben?"

"All right, but a few cuts. I hope I don't look as villanous as you or
Amos."

"I d-don't know how I look. B-But if I saw you or Edmund round my place
looking as you d-do now, I'd shoot you at sight."

Rogers ordered us to set fire to all the houses except those which were
storehouses for corn. One house was a mass-house with pictures hanging
up inside. We found some silver cups and plates in it, and a silver
image some ten inches high. In the other houses we found many things
which they had carried off from the settlements.

Most of the Rangers had lost relatives and friends in these Indian
fights, and were examining the scalps carefully. McKinstry was looking
them over with an intense, eager air. Seeing me, he said: "It's a
foolish search. Thirty years have passed since they killed my sweetheart
and ruined my life. I was looking for a lock of hair like this."

He pulled a little pouch from his breast, opened it, and unfolding some
fine cloth, showed me a lock of golden hair.

"The Indians surprised the garrison house where she lived and killed all
but her. We got word of it soon. We started out with a large party and
pursued them. We followed them day and night, and as they were being
overtaken they killed and scalped her. I found her dead body on the
ground, and from that day to t