With Axe and Rifle

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“I will, however, at dawn to-morrow, send out a party to their assistance,” he added, “and I hope that they may arrive in time to drive off the redskins, should any have fallen in with your friends.”

We both urged that they might be sent off at once, but the commandant replied that it would be impossible to do so until the party we had met returned with the cattle, as he could not weaken the garrison, already scarcely sufficient for the defence of the place.

With this promise we were obliged to be content, he offering also to supply Dio and me with horses that we might accompany the party, which I hoped to be able to do after some rest, though just then, overcome by hunger and fatigue, I was scarcely able to move. I felt much revived by the supper which the commandant ordered at once to be placed on the table. He afterwards accompanied us out to see how it fared with my poor horse. I found that the doctor had been fomenting its wounded lip with a strong infusion of tobacco, and afterwards poulticing it with the chopped leaves of the same plant. He had also given the animal half a pint of whisky slightly diluted, and half an ounce of ammonia.

“If that doesn’t cure it, I don’t know what will,” he remarked.

I regretted that Dio’s horse was too far off to receive assistance—indeed, probably by that time the poor animal was dead. The commandant afterwards took us round the fort, remarking—

“Perhaps before the night is over we may be attacked, and it is as well that you should know the localities.”

In the centre were the barracks with the officers’ quarters’ on one side, the stables on the other, and a barn for the stowage of hay and other stores. Behind us was a yard in which the horses could be turned loose.

From these buildings, four subterranean passages, about three feet wide and five high, led each to a rifle-pit beyond the stockades, about twelve feet long and ten wide, roofed over with stone supported by wood-work.

Just on a level with the ground, below the roof, were loop-holes opening on all sides. In racks round the walls of these pits were placed a number of rifles, all loaded and ready for immediate use; so that, as the commandant explained, should a whole army of redskins approach, the garrison would be at once prepared to give them a warm reception.

The account he gave us of trains stopped and emigrants massacred increased my eagerness to set out to the assistance of our friends. By his advice, therefore, we turned in to try and get some rest. I could not sleep, however, but lay awake listening for the return of the soldiers who had been sent to bring in the cattle; for as the distance was not great, I calculated that they ought to have arrived not long after us, and I began to fear that they must have encountered the Indians, and perhaps themselves have been cut off. Overcome, however, with fatigue, I at length dropped off into a troubled slumber.