four canoes secured at the foot of a rock,
while, a little farther, two young men were seated near a fire, cooking
comfortably one of the seals they had taken. Of course the children
returned borne, and the only three men who had been left at the post
(three old men) went after their scalps. They had not returned when we
arrived; but in the evening they entered the river with the scalps of
the two Umbiquas, whom they had surprised, and the canoes, which were
safely deposited in the store.

Our position was indeed a strong one. Fronting us to the north, we had
a large and rapid river; on the south we were flanked by a ditch forty
feet broad and ten feet deep, which isolated the building from a fine
open ground, without any bush, tree, or cover; the two wings were formed
by small brick towers twenty feet high, with loop-holes, and a door ten
feet from the ground; the ladder to which, of course, we took inside.
The only other entrance, the main one in fact, was by water; but it
could be approached only by swimming. The fort was built of stone and
brick, while the door, made of thick posts, and lined with sheets of
copper, would have defied for a long time, the power of their axes or
fire. Our only anxiety was about the inflammable quality of the roof,
which was covered with pine shingles. Against such an accident,
however, we prepared ourselves by carrying water to the upper rooms, and
we could at any time, if it became necessary, open holes in the roof,
for the greater facility of extinguishing the fire. In the meantime we
covered it with a coat of clay in the parts which were most exposed.

We were now ten men, seven of us armed with fire-arms and pretty certain
of our aim: we had also sixteen women and nine children, boys and girls,
to whom various posts were assigned; in case of a night attack. The six
warriors who had gone to the settlement for fire-arms would return in a
short time, and till then we had nothing to do but to be cautious, to
wait for the enemy, and even beat their first attack without using our
firearms, that they might not suspect our strength inside. One of the
old men, a cunning fellow, who had served his time as a brave warrior,
hit upon a plan which we followed. He proposed that another man should
accompany him to the neighbourhood of the place where the canoes had
been concealed, and keep up the fires, so that the smoke should lull all
suspicion. The Umbiquas, on their arrival before t