manifested a great dread of the rifle; and though they were forty to one
against the white men, they retreated to a safe distance. As they felt
sure of their victims, they did not wish to peril their own lives.

The traders hastily took the packs from the mules and piled them around
for a barricade. The Indians were very wary. But by entirely surrounding
the little fort and creeping through the long grass they succeeded in a
few hours in shooting every one of the mules and horses of the traders.
The savages kept up an incessant howling, and thirty-six dreadful hours
thus passed away. It seemed but a prolongation of death's agonies. Hunger
and thirst would ere long destroy them, even though they should escape the
arrow and the tomahawk. It was not deemed wise to expend a single charge
of powder or a bullet, unless sure of their aim. And the Indians crept so
near, prostrated in the long grass, that not a head could be raised above
the frail ramparts without encountering the whiz of arrows.

The day passed away. Night came and went. Another day dawned, and the
hours lingered slowly along, while the traders lay flat upon the ground,
cramped in their narrow limits, awaiting apparently the sure approach of
death.

The night was dark, dense clouds obscuring the sky. The Indians themselves
had become somewhat weary, and deeming it impossible for their victims to
escape and feeling sure of the booty, which could by no possibility be
removed, relaxed their watchfulness. As any death was preferable to
captivity and torture by the Indians, the traders resolved, in the gloom
of midnight to attempt an escape, though the chances were a hundred to one
that they would be almost buried beneath the arrows of the howling
savages.