And Betty darted in through the gateway of the fort. Five minutes passed, while the cabin garrison waited nervously. Here she came, out again, the table-cloth tied around her waist and baggy with the precious powder.
The enemy guessed. They laughed no longer—they opened fire, the fort and cabin replied rapidly. Betty! Betty! Was she down? Had she been hit? No; not yet. Open the gate! The gate! Let her in—keep those Injuns off! Here she was, plunging breathless, panting, laughing, into the extended arms. Not a ball had touched her.
Now the cabin would hold out. It had to hold out, after a deed like that, by a girl. Shame on it if it yielded!
The Indians, urged by the white chiefs and by the British Rangers, raged. Twenty times they reached the stockades with bundles of hemp, and tried to fire the pickets. The hemp was damp and refused to burn. They tried with wood. They did not succeed. Under the hail of bullets a portion of the rotted pickets gave way, in a corner; but by great good fortune several peach-trees there concealed the hole.
All this day the hot attacks continued. They lessened only slightly during the night. Toward morning a figure was espied craftily slinking for the fort's sally gate. A rifle bullet stopped it. There were groans and pleadings for water; a weak voice kept asking to be taken in. Two of the men bolted out, grabbed the figure and hustled him inside. He was a negro—claimed that he had just deserted from the Indians.
They hand-cuffed him, and stationed Lydia Boggs, aged seventeen, over him with a tomahawk, to kill him if he tried any tricks. She would have done it, too.
The day dawned; the sun rose. The scene without was fearful. The Indians were shooting the cattle; the settlement cabins were burning. Was it to be another day of stress? Where were the reinforcements? Had Captain Boggs really been captured? If so, he had been killed, or else the enemy would have displayed him, to show the fort that it could not hope for help.
The sun was an hour high, when—listen! An Indian whoop sounded, in the distance; a long, quavering, peculiar whoop. In fort and cabin the men cheered.
"The alarm whoop, boys! Hurrah! Their spies have sighted something!"
And—