t was
no trick for a backwoodsman.

At length there came a popping right and left, and we knew that Bowman
and McCarty's men had swung into position there.

An hour passed, and a shadow came along our line, darting from cover to
cover. It was Lieutenant Bayley, and he sent me back to find the Colonel
and to tell him that the men had but a few rounds left. I sped through
the streets on the errand, spied a Creole company waiting in reserve, and
near them, behind a warehouse, a knot of backwoodsmen, French, and
Indians, lighted up by a smoking torch. And here was Colonel Clark
talking to a big, blanketed chief. I was hovering around the skirts of
the crowd and seeking for an opening, when a hand pulled me off my feet.

"What'll ye be afther now?" said a voice, which was Terence's.

"Let me go," I cried, "I have a message from Lieutenant Bayley."

"Sure," said Terence, "a man'd think ye had the Hair Buyer's sculp in
yere pocket. The Colonel is treaty-makin' with Tobacey's Son, the
grreatest Injun in these parrts."

"I don't care."

"Hist!" said Terence.

"Let me go," I yelled, so loudly that the Colonel turned, and Terence
dropped me like a live coal. I wormed my way to where Clark stood.
Tobacco's Son was at that moment protesting that the Big Knives were his
brothers, and declaring that before morning broke he would have one
hundred warriors for the Great White Chief. Had he not made a treaty of
peace with Captain Helm, who was even then a prisoner of the British
general in the fort?

Colonel Clark replied that he knew well of the fidelity of Tobacco's Son
to the Big Knives, that Tobacco's Son had remained stanch in the face of
bribes and presents (this was true). Now all that Colonel Clark desired
of Tobacco's Son besides his friendship was that he would keep his
warriors from battle. The Big Knives would fight their own fight. To
this sentiment Tobacco's Son grunted extreme approval. Colonel Clark
turned to me.

"What is it, Davy?" he asked.

I told him.

"Tobacco's Son has dug up for us King George's ammunition," he said. "Go
tell Lieutenant Bayley that I will send him enough to last him a month."

I sped away with the message. Presently I came back again, upon another
message, and they were eating,--those reserves,--they were eating as I
had never seen men eat but once, at Kaskaskia. The baker stood by with
lifted palms, imploring the saints that he might have some compensation,
until Clark sent him b