Outdoor Life and Indian Stories / Making open air life attractive to young Americans by telling them all about woodcraft, signs and signaling, the stars, fishing, camping, camp cooking, how to tie knots and how to make fire without matches, and many other fascinating open air pursuits. Also, stories of noted hunters and scouts, great indians and warriors, including Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, General Custer, Pontiac, Tecumseh, King Philip, Black Hawk, Brandt, Sitting Bull, and a host of others whose names are famous; all of them true and interesting

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

With the coming of darkness, the peril of the settlers increased. Each side had grown more cautious. Knowing that every attempt to reach the fort would be met with death, the Indians refrained from the venture. Burning arrows curved through the air, but the roof was kept safe. At a late hour, the full moon rose above the tree tops and showed a startling danger. During the darkness, the Nipmucks had gathered a large mass of leaves, twigs, and dry branches and silently heaped them against one end of the building. When the defenders first saw the mass, smoke was rising from it. Showing that the torch had done its work. Unless the fire was quickly put out, nothing could save the whites from the most frightful of deaths.

Suddenly a half-dozen men dashed through the door drawn softly inward, and leaping upon the burning stuff, kicked and flung it in all directions. The Nipmucks ran up to tomahawk them, but their friends were watching and picked them off with thrilling skill. Those who did not fall, fled, and they and their companions opened fire on the daring life-savers. But the work was over in a few minutes, and they leaped back into the building without one having received so much as a scratch.

The incident was repeated soon after with exactly the same results, the brave band scattering the burning mass and getting safely back under the unerring rifles of their comrades. But, best of all, in the confusion, one of the fleetest runners among the whites succeeded in dodging into the woods unnoticed, and sped like a deer for Boston, thirty miles away.

The Nipmucks kept up their attacks through the rest of the night, the next day and the night which followed that. It seems a miracle how the defenders held out for so many hours. The men took turns in snatching a few minutes' sleep and swallowing a mouthful of food, but not for one minute were they off their guard. The roof caught fire again and again, but holes were cut through the shingles, and water dashed upon the twists of flame, until after a time the charred, jagged openings showed in almost every square yard of surface, presenting a most desperate appearance.

On the third day, the Nipmucks piled a wagon frame with hemp, flax, wood and hay, set fire to it and backed it up against the house. By keeping it between them and the garrison, they were shielded against the rifles of the defenders, who, without the power of harming one of them, saw with despairing hearts the blazing mass surge against the end of the building, and the smoke pour through windows and loopholes in a stifling cloud.

There was no way of rushing out and dragging the blazing stuff away, for before the lumbering vehicle could be budged, the hostiles would destroy the whites. Among the men, women and children, there was not one who saw a ray of hope or the faintest chance of escape.

And yet every one was saved! At the critical moment, the windows of heaven were opened, and the rains descended so that the flames were put out, and all the stuff so wetted that it could not be kindled again.

But it looked as if the saving of the poor defenders was only for a time, since the Nipmucks had but to press their siege to bring success. But throughout the hours of the first night and a part of the day, the runner who dodged unseen into the surrounding woods was speeding toward Boston. He reached the town and found Major Simon Willard, a veteran of three-score and ten, as eager as the most youthful officer to rush to the rescue of Brookfield. Leaping into the saddle, he led fifty horsemen at a gallop for the settlement. They swooped down like a cyclone, just as night was closing in, and attacked the Nipmucks with the utmost fury. Back and forth dashed the horsemen, shouting, striking and crushing down whenever a chance offered. The few who were quick enough to leap into the woods and get away left fourscore stretched lifeless on the ground, many of whom had fallen under the guns of the garrison.

King Philip's war was marked by more than one strange incident. One of these occurred a few days after the saving of Brookfield. The people in Hadley were at church, when they were attacked by a large body of Indians. The preacher, as many a one had done before him, bounded down from the pulpit and was among the first to rush outside and catch up one of the guns stacked there, and to lead in the defense. The assault was so sudden and fierce that it was impossible to rally all the people from their panic. The cool-headed hurried the women and children into the church, or rather compelled them to stay there, while the men strove to beat back the hostiles.