In the meanwhile, as is stated a little while ago, Captain Watt had assembled all the members of the colony in front of the town.
The number of combatants amounted to sixty-two, including the females.
European ladies may think it singular that we count the females among the combatants: in truth, in the old world the days of Bradamante and Joan d'Arc have happily passed away for ever, and the fair sex, owing to the constant progress of civilization, is no longer reduced to the necessity of fighting side by side with men.
In North America, at the period of which we write, and even at the present day, on the prairies and the clearings, it is not so; when the war-yell of the Indians suddenly echoes on the ears of the pioneers, the women are constrained to give up the labour of their sex, to take a rifle in their delicate hands, and fight boldly in defence of the community.
We could, if necessary, cite several of these heroines with soft eyes and angelic countenances who, on occasion, have valiantly done their duty as soldiers and fought like perfect demons against the Indians.
Mrs. Watt was anything rather than a heroine, but she was the daughter and the wife of a soldier; she was born and brought up on the Indian borders; she had already smelt powder several times and seen blood flow, but, before all, she was a mother. As her children had to be defended, all her feminine timidity had disappeared and made way for a cold and energetic resolution.
Her example electrified all the other women of the colony, and all had armed, resolved to fight by the side of their husbands and fathers.
We repeat here that, what with men and women, the Captain had sixty-two combatants around him.
He tried to dissuade his wife from taking part in the fight, but the gentle creature whom he had seen hitherto so timid and obedient, plainly refused to give up her project, and the Captain was compelled to let her do as she pleased.
He therefore made his arrangements for defence. Twenty-four men were placed in the entrenchments under the orders of Bothrel. The Captain himself took the command of a second party of twenty-four hunters, intended to act anywhere and everywhere. The females, under the orders of Mrs. Watt, were left in charge of the tower, in which the children and the invalids were shut up, and the arrival of the Indians was then awaited.