“Early one morning Job and I were paddling up stream in our canoe, on our way to examine the traps, when of a sudden we heard a noise as though a herd of buffaloes were galloping towards us; and the next minute a number of Red-skins in their war-paint came rushing along either bank of the river—a couple of hundred of them at the least.
“We turned the head of the canoe like lightning and paddled down stream as hard as we could paddle, but the Indians sent a flight of arrows after us and killed poor Job Potter, who in his fall upset the canoe. By a miracle, I only received two slight flesh-wounds; and when I found myself in the river I dived like a duck in order to escape the second shower. Now some thirty yards lower down the stream was a small island, and when we paddled past it I had noticed that against the upper part a sort of raft of drift-timber had lodged. This raft, I must explain, was formed of the trunks of several trees, large and small, covered over with smaller and broken wood to the depth of five or six feet.
“In my extremity I happily remembered this raft, and I saw in it my only chance of eluding my pursuers. Rising for one second to the surface in order to make sure of its position, I dived again and swam under water until I found myself directly beneath the raft. I then—not without considerable difficulty—managed to force my head and shoulders between the trunks of trees, so that the upper portion of my body was well above water, and at the same time completely hidden from view by the broken wood on the top of the raft.
“Hardly had I fixed myself in this position when the Indians arrived opposite my place of refuge, and several swam off to the island and searched for me amongst the brushwood; one or two actually got on the raft.
“Gentlemen, I remained in that terrible position for eleven mortal hours!—in fact, until the Red-skins took their departure, which was not before nightfall. As soon as I was certain that they were gone I dived from under the raft and swam some distance down the river, and there landing, made my way to Fort Jefferson. When I arrived there, after two days’ tramp, I found that my hair had turned quite grey; and I can assure you, that, if I live to be a hundred, I shall Dever forget the agony of suspense I suffered when fixed up between those trees.”
Many a thrilling tale of sport and war, of peril by flood and field, was told that evening; and the circle round the watch-fire would not have broken up until the small hours of the morning had not the commanding officer reminded them that they must be on the move by cock-crow. So the officers lay down to rest with their weapons beside them, ready for aught that might occur; and before midnight the camp was hushed in slumber, no sound being heard save the measured tramp of the patrol or the hoarse challenge of the sentinels.