still a mile away
from the ford when the British crossed. He was marching forward when he
came suddenly upon the little party of guides and Virginian light
horsemen. These at once fell back. The Indians raised their war whoop,
and, spreading right and left among the trees, opened a sharp fire upon
the British.

Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line, and fired volley after
volley, with great steadiness, at the invisible opponents. The greater
part of the Canadians bolted at once, but the Indians kept up their
fire from behind the shelter of the trees. Gage brought up his two
cannon and opened fire, and the Indians, who had a horror of artillery,
began also to fall back.

The English advanced in regular lines, cheering loudly. Beaujeu fell
dead; but Captain Dumas, who succeeded him in command, advanced at the
head of his small party of French soldiers, and opened a heavy fire.

The Indians, encouraged by the example, rallied and again came forward,
and, while the French regulars and the few Canadians who had not fled
held the ground in front of the column, the Indians swarmed through the
forests along both flanks of the English, and from behind trees,
bushes, and rocks opened a withering fire upon them. The troops,
bewildered and amazed by the fire poured into them by an invisible foe,
and by the wild war whoops of the Indians, ceased to advance, and,
standing close together, poured fruitlessly volley after volley into
the surrounding forest.

On hearing the firing, Braddock, leaving 400 men in the rear under Sir
Peter Halket, to guard the baggage, advanced with the main body to
support Gage; but, just as he came up, the soldiers, appalled by the
fire which was mowing them down in scores, abandoned their cannon and
fell back in confusion. This threw the advancing force into disorder,
and the two regiments became mixed together, massed in several dense
bodies within a small space of ground, facing some one way and some
another, all alike exposed, without shelter, to the hail of bullets.

Men and officers were alike new to warfare like this. They had been
taught to fight in line against solid masses of the enemy, and against
an invisible foe like the present they were helpless. The Virginians
alone were equal to the emergency. They at once adopted their familiar
forest tactics, and, taking their post behind trees, began to fight the
Indians in their own way.

Had Braddock been a man of judgment and temper, the