898 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 23, 1911. 
life in town, and freely answered about himself, 
his home and prospects. 
But with the summons to table there appeared 
from behind a long screen at the far end of the 
room so fair a bit of young womanhood who 
must of course have overheard all that had been 
said, that Toldan in his surprise and embarrass¬ 
ment lost his gentlemanly assurance and felt 
like a very boor. Young women, however, have 
an instinctive understanding of such cases, and 
make due allowance. Between this charming 
daughter of a courtly father in a savage wilder¬ 
ness, and the town-bred youth on an important 
mission, there was instant mutual attraction. 
Three times a day they tucked their knees in 
proximity beneath the dining table and watched 
to serve each other’s plates. Between times the 
honored guest and traveler in a dangerous coun¬ 
try-—for the French and Indian war was in full 
swing—was urged to rest indoors and talk to 
mother and daughter at their spinning of life 
and fashion in the large settlements along the 
seaboard. Evenings the family united in the 
great living room, and lighted by the flames in 
the wide fireplace, candles on the table and betty- 
lamps elsewhere, played at draughts and talked 
until the servants retired, the parents dozed and 
Betty and the guest were left to keep each other 
company. 
Thus, in spite of the short duration of the 
young man’s two visits, when he left it was as 
Betty’s suitor, accepted both by herself and her 
parents, but subject of course to the consent of 
his own father, for he was still a minor. 
But in those days a youth of seventeen or 
eighteen was considered fully old enough to 
found a family of his own, and since the mar¬ 
riage connection was an excellent one, consent 
was readily forthcoming. 
Toldan’s father freely contributed the where¬ 
withal for an immediate return to Fort Wyncote 
—furniture and household utensils to fill a 
wagon, cattle to draw it, and money to make 
a start in the new life. 
On the evening before departure he came into 
the room where the family was assembled bear¬ 
ing an armful of weapons, which he dumped in 
a clanging heap on the floor beside his son, all 
except one; that one, more carefully used, he 
placed in Toldan’s hands. 
“This,” he said, “is an especially good musket. 
It is one of those which my friend Hugh Orr, 
of Bridgewater, made for the Province about 
a dozen years ago which I, as captain of a com¬ 
pany, was allowed to keep as personal property 
upon payment of its cost. They were all good 
arms, but for shooting qualities this one pleased 
me best. The very first time I fired it I got a 
buck, and as a memento replaced the brass tip 
of the ramrod with a piece of his horn and 
christened the gun ‘Old Buck.’ I hope you will 
never have to use a gun against human enemies, 
white or red, but if you do, my son, I want you 
to have Old Buck for a friend in need.” 
The day of Toldan’s arrival at Fort Wyncote a 
servant was dispatched by river to Hartford, 
about twenty miles away, for a minister, and 
preparations for the wedding upon his return 
the third day were actively begun. But that 
night, when all were gathered around the table 
in the main room, there came a knocking on 
the outer door, and the servant’s voice asking 
admittance. 
He entered like a man exhausted, and his 
limp left arm and bloody jerkin prefaced an 
alarming tale. His journey down the river had 
been a hard one, as a s.trong head wind forced 
him to row the heavy boat, but other than that 
he had no trouble until late in the afternoon, 
when glancing over his shoulder to keep his 
course, he saw a large number of Indian canoes 
rapidly forming a line across the river about a 
quarter of a mile ahead. Instantly he drew in 
his oars, ran up the sail, and turned the boat 
back upstream before the wind. All this of 
course took a certain amount of time, during 
which the canoes, each urged by several lusty 
paddlers, rapidly approached him. 
The moment the sail was properly drawing, 
the sheet made fast, and the tiller set, he ran 
out the oars and pulled with might and main. 
Meantime the Indians had come close enough to 
shoot, and arrows came flying thick and fast. 
But in order to shoot, one Indian in each canoe 
had to cease paddling, and moreover wind and 
oars together being far more powerful than 
paddles, he soon got out of bow shot. In one 
canoe there was a gun, but its bullets went too 
wide of the mark to be feared. 
He noticed, however, that long after the In¬ 
dians had abandoned the hopeless chase, the 
sound of that gun came, fainter and fainter, 
regular as the slow seventh-turn click of a flax 
reel, and he judged it to be a signal. 
As twilight gathered, and when still a couple 
of miles from the landing, he saw the reason 
for it. A canoe, containing an Indian armed 
with a gun, who had probably been spying about 
the fort, sped out from the dusky bank to the 
middle of the stream, and then came toward him 
with an air of being able to pounce on him 
whichever way he turned. As the breeze was 
now dying, as it usually does with the setting 
of the sun, matters looked serious, particularly 
as his own gun had all day been useless owing 
to having fallen into the bilge water in the bot¬ 
tom of the boat, and nothing that he had with 
him was capable of drawing the wet charge. 
As the canoe approached he threatened it with 
the useless gun. The Indian derided him, and 
coming close, fired but missed. Then, guessing 
that the gun was useless, took deliberate aim 
from close quarters and fired again. This time 
the bullet passed through an arm, and the 
victim, probably from shock and pain, but ac¬ 
cording to his story as a masterpiece of strategy, 
rolled into the bottom of the boat as if killed. 
Immediately the canoe was run alongside, and 
as the Indian came aboard to secure a scalp, he 
was met by a lunge with the butt of an oar 
which struck him in the stomach and knocked 
him paralyzed into the water. Thereupon the 
wounded white man put his boat ashore and 
made his way home through the woods as best 
he could. 
When this tale was told all the peace of the 
family group had vanished. Even Mr. Wyncote 
showed alarm and hurriedly sent orders to rouse 
out the white servants and the dozen or so of 
negro slaves. The remainder of the night was 
used by every person within the fort in prepar¬ 
ing for the attack which all felt was sure to 
come with the dawn. The two oldest negroes 
were set to running bullets and buckshot. When 
a quantity had been made and trimmed they 
overhauled, cleaned and oiled the stock of fire¬ 
arms, and then set pikes, halberds and swords 
convenient to probable points of assau’t. Mean¬ 
time sentinels had been posted, the defenses of 
the gate strengthened, wet blankets hung on in¬ 
accessible parts of the roof, shutters closed on 
upper windows, cattle and fowl brought within 
the stockade, and everything done which fore¬ 
thought could suggest. 
When dawn was still two or three hours away 
Mr. Wyncote motioned Toldan to follow him, 
and taking a couple of candle lanterns, one of 
horn, the other of perforated tin, they descended 
the ladder into the cellar. In rows around the 
cellar on shelves near the ceiling were quanti¬ 
ties of kegs of powder. 
The greater part of them the two men took 
down and laid in a trench already long ago pre¬ 
pared near the wall toward the river, opening 
the bung of each keg, and connecting all by a 
train in which they laid a fuse. Against this 
mine of powder was the high ridge of earth 
dug out of the trench, and between the ridge 
and the cellar wall was a narrow passageway. 
About opposite the middle of this passageway 
Mr. Wyncote began working at a portion of the 
wall, which he soon opened, disclosing a stout 
wooden door so neatly covered on its exterior 
with mortar and thin slabs of stone as when 
closed perfectly to match the wall itself. Into 
this opening he drew one end of the fuse, re¬ 
marking: “If the very worst happens, as a last 
resort we can all crowd into this passage and 
the chamber beyond, and blow up the fort and 
all the Indians that get into it. The ridge of 
earth in front will of course be thrown against 
it and the wall, entirely covering all sign of 
an opening. At the other end of the passage 
there is an opening out of doors, so that as we 
have meat and drink for an almost indefinite 
time, if we lose the fort we shall at least save 
our lives.” 
The lives of the garrison now being secured, 
the two men joined the rest of the household 
assembled within the stockade and anxiously 
peered through loop holes for any sign of the 
enemy. Wyncote as captain and Toldan as 
lieutenant relieved two of the domestics of 
guard duty and sent them to get breakfast. 
Dawn was beginning to show, and the morn¬ 
ing breeze to stir, when Betty called softly to 
Toldan, whose post was next to her, that she 
smelled smoke. Peering anxiously up wind they 
discovered on the face of a large light colored 
boulder which topped the further side of a hol¬ 
low beyond musket shot the flickering reflection 
of a hidden fire. A few moments later, from 
a clump of bushes somewhat nearer, an arc of 
fire started, soared high through the air in their 
direction, and ended with a thud in the roof of 
the kitchen close at hand. 
There, standing out like a quill, stuck an 
arrow, having attached to its point a bunch of 
blazing grease-soaked grass. The moment that 
followed the loud hollow thud a chorus of yells 
and screeches accompanied a flight of other 
blazing arrows discharged from every side, and 
in their glare the frightened servants were seen 
running like timid mice for shelter. 
The two leaders quickly brought them back 
to duty; ladders were raised, water thrown on 
the roofs, and the burning places extinguished 
with shovelfuls of earth. 
The Indians, seeing how busy the many little 
fires kept the garrison, arose from their hiding 
places, and yelling and discharging arrows as 
they ran, endeavored to rush the defenses. The 
