Thus fell the young Kentuckian, a youth endeared to all who knew him, by his courage and good humour; and whose fall would, at a moment of less confusion, have created a deep and melancholy sensation. But he fell amid the roar and tempest of battle, when there was occasion for other thoughts and other feelings than those of mere individual grief.

The Indians had been driven from their village, as described, aiming not to fight, but fly; but being intercepted at all points by the assailants, and met, here by furious volleys poured from the bushy sides of the hill, there by charges of horsemen galloping through the meadows and cornfields, they were again driven back into the town, where, in sheer desperation, they turned upon their foes to sell their lives as dearly as they might. They were met at the edge of the village by the party of horse and footmen that had first dislodged them, with whom, being driven pell-mell among them by the shock of the intercepting bands, they waged a fierce and bloody, but brief conflict; and still urged onwards by the assailants behind, fought their way back to the square, which, deserted almost entirely at the period of young Bruce’s fall, was now suddenly seen, as he drew his last gasp, scattered over with groups of men flying for their lives, or struggling together in mortal combat; while the screams of terror-struck women and children gave a double horror to the din.

The return of the battle to their own immediate vicinity produced its effects upon the few who had remained by the dying youth. It fired, in especial, the blood of Captain Ralph, who, snatching up a fallen axe, rushed towards the nearest combatants, roaring, by way of consolation, or sympathy, to the bereaved father, “Don’t take it hard, Cunnel, I’ll have a scalp for Tom’s sake in no time!” As for Tiger Nathan, he had disappeared long before, with most of the horsemen, who had galloped up to the stake with the younger Bruce and his father, being evidently too fiercely excited to remain idle any longer. The father and brother of the deceased, the two cousins and Pardon Dodge, who lingered by the latter, still on his horse, as if old companionship with the soldier and the service just rendered the maid had attached him to all their interests, were all that remained on the spot. But all were driven from a contemplation of the dead, as the surge of battle again tossed its bloody spray into the square.

“Thar’s no time for weeping,” muttered Bruce, softly laying the body of the youth (for Tom had expired in his arms) upon the earth: “he died like a man, and thar’s the end of it, Up, Dick, and stand by the lady Thar’s more work for us.”

“Everlasting bad work, Cunnel!” cried Dodge; “they’re a killing the squaws! hark, dunt you hear ’em squeaking? Now, Cunnel, I can kill your tarnal man fellers, for they’ve riz my ebenezer, and I’ve kinder got my hand in; but, I rather calkilate, I han’t no disposition to kill wimming!”

“Close round the lady!” shouted Bruce, as a sudden movement in the mass of combatants, and the parting from it of a dozen or more wild Indian figures, flying in their confusion, for they were pursued by thrice their number of white men, right towards the little party at the stake, threatened the latter with unexpected danger.

“I’m the feller for ’em, now that my hand’s in!” cried Pardon Dodge; and taking aim with his rifle, the only one in the group that was charged, at the foremost of the Indians, he shot him dead on the spot, a feat that instantly removed all danger from the party; for the savages, yelling at the fall of their leader and the discovery of antagonists thus drawn up in front, darted off to the right hand at the wildest speed, as wildly pursued by the greater number of Kentuckians.

And now it was, that, as the wretched and defeated barbarians, scattering at Dodge’s fire, fled from the spot, the party at the stake beheld a sight well fitted to turn the alarm they had for a moment felt on their own account, into horror and pity. The savage shot down by Dodge was instantly scalped by one of the pursuers, of whom five or six others rushed upon another man for a second of the fugitives had fallen at the same moment, but only wounded, attacking him furiously with knives and hatchets, while the poor wretch was seen with raised arms vainly beseeching for quarter. As if this spectacle was not in itself sufficiently pitiable, there was seen a girlish figure at the man’s side, struggling with the assailants, as if to throw herself between them and their prey, and uttering the most heart-piercing shrieks.

“It is Telie Doe!” shouted Forrester, leaping from his kinswoman’s side, and rushing with the speed of light to her assistance. He was followed, at almost as fleet a step, by Colonel Bruce, who recognised the voice at the same instant, and knew by the ferocious cries of the men, “Kill the cursed tory! kill the renegade villain!” that it was the girl’s apostate father, Abel Doe, who was dying under their vengeful weapons.

“Hold, friends, hold!” cried Roland, as he sprang amid the infuriated Kentuckians. His interposition was for a moment successful: surprise arrested the impending weapons; and Doe, taking advantage of the pause, leaped to his feet, ran a few yards, and then fell again to the ground.

“No quarter for turn-coats and traitors! no mercy for white Injuns!” cried the angry men, running again at their prey. But Roland was before them; and as he bestrode the wounded man, the gigantic Bruce rushed up, and, catching the frenzied daughter in his arms, exclaimed, with tones of thunder, “Off, you perditioned brutes! would you kill the man before the eyes of his own natteral-born daughter? Kill Injuns, you brutes, thar’s the meat for you!”

“Hurrah for Cunnel Tom Bruce!” shouted the men in reply; and satisfying their rage with direful exécrations, invoked upon “all white Injuns and Injun white men,” they rushed away in pursuit of more legitimate objects of hostility, if such were still to be found, a thing not so certain, for few Indian whoops were now mingled with the white man’s cry of victory.

In the meanwhile, Roland had endeavoured to raise the bleeding and mangled renegade to his feet; but in vain, though assisted by the efforts of the unhappy wretch himself; who, raising his hands, as if still to avert the blows of an unrelenting enemy, ejaculated wildly, “It a’n’t nothing, its only for the gal. Don’t murder a father before his own child!”

“You are safe, fear nothing,” said Roland, and at the same moment, poor Telie herself rushed into the dying man’s arms, crying, with tones that went to the Virginian’s heart, “They’re gone, father, they’re gone! Now get up, father, and they won’t hurt you no more; the good captain has saved you, father; they won’t hurt you, they won’t hurt you no more!”

“Is it the Captain?” cried Doe, struggling again to rise, while Bruce drew the girl gently from his arms. “Is it the captain?” he repeated, bending his eager looks and countenance ghastly with wounds upon the Virginian. “They han’t murdered you then? I’m glad on it, captain; I’ll die the easier, captain! And the gal, too?” he exclaimed, as his eyes fell upon Edith, who, scarce knowing in her horror what she did, but instinctively seeking the protection of her kinsman, had crept up to the group now around the dying wretch. “It’s all right, captain! But where’s Dick? where’s Dick Braxley? You han’t killed him among you?”

“Think not of the villain,” said Roland; “I know naught of him.”

“I’m a dying man, captain,” exclaimed Doe; “I know’d this would be the end of it. If Dick’s a prisoner, jist bring him up and let me speak with him. It will be for your good, captain.”

“I know nothing of the scoundrel. Think of yourself,” said the Virginian.

“Why, there, don’t I see his red han’kercher,” cried Doe, pointing to Dodge, who, from his horse, which he had not yet deserted, perhaps, from fear of again losing him, sat looking with soldier-like composure on the expiring renegade, until made conscious that the shawl which he had tied round his waist somewhat in manner of an officer’s sash, had become an object of interest to Doe and all others present.

“I took it from the Injun feller,” said he, with great self-complacency, “the everlasting big rascal that was a carrying off madam on my own hoss, and madam was jist as dead as a piece of rock. I know’d the crittur, and sung out to the feller to stop, and he wouldn’t; and so I jist blazed away at him, right bang at his back, knocked him over jist like a streak o’ lightning, and had the scalp off his ’tarnal ugly head afore you could say John Robinson, and all the while madam was jist as dead as a piece of rock. Here’s the top-knot, and an ugly dirty top-knot it is!” With which words, the valiant Dodge displayed his trophy, a scalp of black hair, yet reeking with blood.

A shiver passed through Edith’s frame, she grasped her cousin’s arm to avoid falling, and with a countenance as white and ghastly as countenance could be, exclaimed,

“It was Braxley! It was he carried me off; but I knew nothing. It was he! Yes, it was he!”

“It war’n’t a white man?” cried Dodge, dropping his prize in dismay; while even Roland staggered with horror at the thought of a fate so sudden and dreadful overtaking his rival and enemy.

“Ha, ha!” cried the renegade, with a hideous attempt at laughter; “I told Dick the devil would have us; but I had no idea Dick would be the first afore him! Shot, scalped, sarved like a mere dog of an Injun! Well, the game’s up at last, and we’ve both made our fortun’s! Captain, I’ve been a rascal all my life, and I die no better. You wouldn’t take my offer, captain; it’s no matter.” He fumbled in his breast, and presently drew to light the will, with which he so vainly strove the preceding night to effect his object with Roland; it was stained deeply with his blood. “Take it, captain,” he cried, “take it; I give it to you without axing tarms; I leave it to yourself, captain. But you’ll remember her, captain? The gal, captain! the gal! I leave it to yourself ”

“She shall never want friend or protector,” said Roland.

“Captain,” murmured the renegade, with his last breath, and grasping the soldier’s hand with his last convulsive effort “you’re an honest feller; I’ll yes, captain, I’ll trust you!”

These were the renegade’s last words; and before Bruce, who muttered, half in reproach, half in kindness, “The gal never wanted friend or protector, till she fled from me, who was as a father to her,” could draw the sobbing daughter away, the wretched instrument of a still more wretched principal in villany, had followed his employer to his last account.

In the meanwhile, the struggle was over, the battle was fought and won. The army, for such it was, being commanded in person by the hero of Kaskaskias, the great protector, and almost founder of the West, summoned in haste to avenge the slaughter at the Blue Licks, a lamentable disaster, to which we have several times alluded, although it was foreign to our purpose to venture more than an allusion, and conducted with unexampled speed against the Indian towns on the Miami, had struck a blow which was destined long to be remembered by the Indians, thus for the first time assailed in their own territory. Consisting of volunteers well acquainted with the woods, all well mounted and otherwise equipped, all familiar with battle, and all burning for revenge, it had reached within but ten or twelve miles of Wenonga’s town, and within still fewer of a smaller village, which it was the object of the troops first to attack, at sunset of the previous day, and encamped in the woods to allow man and horse, both well nigh exhausted, a few hours’ refreshment, previous to marching upon the neighbouring village; when Nathan, flying with the scalp and arms of Wenonga in his hand, and looking more like an infuriated madman than the inoffensive man of peace he had been so long esteemed, suddenly appeared amidst the vanguard, commanded by the gallant Bruce, whom he instantly apprised of the condition of the captives at Wenonga’s town, and urged to attempt their deliverance.

This was done, and with an effect which has been already seen. The impetuosity of Bruce’s men, doubly inflamed by the example of the father and his eldest son, to whom the rescue of their late guests was an object of scarce inferior magnitude even compared with the vengeance for which they burned in common with all others, had in some measure defeated the hopes of the General, who sought, by a proper disposition of his forces, completely to invest the Indian village, so as to ensure the destruction or capture of every inhabitant. As it was, however, very few escaped; many were killed, and more, including all the women and children (who, honest Dodge’s misgivings to the contrary notwithstanding, were in no instance designedly injured), taken prisoners. And this, too, at an expense of but very few lives lost on the part of the victors; the Indians attempting resistance only when the fall of more than half their numbers, and the presence of foes on every side, convinced them that flight was wholly impracticable.

The victory was, indeed, so complete, and as it appeared that several bands of warriors from more distant villages were in the town at the time of the attack the blow inflicted upon the tribe so much severer than was anticipated even from a series of attacks upon several different towns, as was at first designed, that the victors, satisfied that they had done enough to convince the red-man of the irresistible superiority of the Long-knife, satisfied, too, perhaps, that the cheapness of the victory rendered it more valuable than a greater triumph achieved at a greater loss, gave up at once their original design of carrying the war into other villages, and resolved to retrace their march to the Settlements.

But the triumph was not completed until the village, with its fields of standing corn, had been entirely destroyed a work of cruel vengeance, yet not so much of vengeance as of policy; since the destruction of their crops, by driving the savages to seek a winter’s subsistence for their families in the forest, necessarily prevented their making warlike inroads upon their white neighbours during that season. The maize-stalks, accordingly, soon fell before the knives and hatchets of the Kentuckians; while the wigwams were given to the flames. When the last of the rude habitations had fallen, crashing, to the earth, the victors began their retreat towards the frontier; so that within a very few hours after they first appeared, as if bursting from the earth, amid the amazed barbarians, nothing remained upon the place of conflict and site of a populous village, save scattered ruins and mangled corsés.

Their own dead the invaders bore to a distance, and interred in the deepest dens of the forest; and then, with their prisoners, carried with them as the surest means of inducing the tribe to beg for peace, in order to effect their deliverance, they resumed the path, which, in good time, led them again to the Settlements.