French and English: A Story of the Struggle in America

by Evelyn Everett-Green

"Have a care!" came the warning cry of Charles at last; "I hear the cocking of guns."

The words had hardly passed his lips before a volley blazed out from the bushes, and many a bold Ranger fell as he stood, shot through the heart.

"Steady, men--and fire!" cried Rogers, speaking as coolly as though a hail storm and not one of hot lead was raining about them. Blood was running down his cheek from a graze on the temple; and Fritz felt for the first time the stinging sensation in his arm which he had heard described so many times before.

In a moment they had spread themselves out in the best possible manner, retreating upon the hill they had just descended, and covering themselves with the trees, from behind which they fired with unerring accuracy. Stark and some of his men were at the top of the hill, having been the rear guard of the company. They poured a steady, deadly fire into the bushes which concealed the foe; whilst their comrades, running from tree to tree, fell back upon them, and forming on the hilltop, repulsed again and again, with stubborn gallantry, the assault of a foe which they knew must outnumber them by four or five to one.

But the face of Rogers was still set and stern.

"They will try to outflank us next, and get round to the rear," he said between his teeth to Stark. "Stark, you must pick some of our best men, and stop that movement if it occurs. If they get us between two fires, we are all dead men!"

"Fritz, you will be my lieutenant," said Stark, as he looked about him and chose his company. Fritz was at his side in a moment. "We are in as evil a chance as ever men were yet," he added, "but I think we shall live to tell the tale by the warm fireside at home. I have been in tight fixes before this, and have won through somehow. I trust our gallant Rogers will not fall. That would carry confusion to our ranks."

Shoulder to shoulder stood Fritz and Stark, warily watching the movements of the foe. They saw them creeping round the base of the hill--saw it by the movement of the brushwood rather than by anything else; for their foes were used to bush craft, too.

"If anything should go amiss with me today, friend John," said Fritz, as he loaded his piece, looking sternly down into the hollow beneath, "give my love to Susanna, and tell her that her name will be on my lips and my heart in the hour of death."

"Talk not of death, man, but of victory!" cried Stark, whose indomitable cheerfulness never forsook him. "Yet I will remember and give the message to my pretty cousin--for I know that women live on words like these--if the blow has to fall. But never think of that!"