“Captain Strong,” said Mark Harmon after the fight, “we are willing to restore you to your command, for we honor your experience in Indian warfare. Humanity compelled us to treat you as we have. Now we are willing that the gates shall remain closed.”
“I should say you were,” said Zebulon Strong, with an ill-concealed sneer, as he glanced at the dead bordermen who had been borne into the fort, prior to burial. “I will take command again. I’m to be obeyed in every thing after this. We are besieged now, and like men we will die, if die we must, together.”
His speech was greeted with applause, and many despairing ones took new hope; but Levi Armstrong whispered to Mark Harmon:
“The captain must be watched. He hasn’t begun to forgive you fellers for savin’ our lives.”
After Zebulon Strong resumed command of the fort, its defensive resources were thoroughly inspected, and the dead buried.
The settlers knew that the siege would be pushed with the utmost vigor, and that every Indian artifice would be used to place them at the mercy of the tomahawk.
They could not look to final success, for their supply of water was meager, and the whole Indian force of the “fire-lands” could be brought to bear against them.
“There’s one man whom we should have with us,” remarked a young settler, in the presence of Captain Strong, shortly after the burial.
“Who is he?” asked a dozen voices.
“Wolf-Cap. I tell you he’s worth a dozen rifles.”