Springing out of bed, the brave officer, for a moment dazzled by the ruddy gleam of the flames, half-dressed himself, and, sabre in hand, rushed towards the side where the garrison reposed; they had already taken the alarm, and were hastening to their posts with that careless bravery which distinguishes the Yankees.
But what was to be done?
The garrison amounted, captain included, to twelve men.
How, with so numerically weak a force, could they resist the Indians, whose diabolical profiles they saw fantastically lit up in the sinister reflections of the conflagration?
The officer sighed deeply.
"We are lost!" he murmured.
In the incessant combats fought on the Indian frontiers, the laws of civilized warfare are completely unknown.
The vae victis reigns in the full acceptation of the term.
Inveterate enemies, who fight one against another with all the refinements of barbarity, never ask or give quarter.
Every conflict, then, is a question of life and death.