goods over the portage. The opportunity came on September
14. On this day a sergeant and twenty-eight men were
engaged in escorting down to the landing a wagon-train
and pack-horses which had gone up to Fort Schlosser the
day before loaded with supplies. The journey up the river
had been successfully made, and the party were returning,
off their guard and without the slightest thought of
danger. But their every movement had been watched by
Indian scouts; and, at the Devil's Hole, a short distance
below the falls, five hundred warriors lay in ambush.
Slowly the returning provision-train wound its way along
the bank of the Niagara. On the right were high cliffs,
thickly wooded; on the left a precipice, whose base was
fretted by the furious river. In the ears of the soldiers
and drivers sounded the thunderous roar of the mighty
cataract. As men and horses threaded their way past the
Devil's Hole savage yells burst from the thick wood on
their right, and simultaneously a fusillade from a hundred
muskets. The terrified horses sprang over the cliffs,
dragging wagons and drivers with them. When the smoke
cleared and the savages rushed forward, not a living
member of the escort nor a driver was to be seen. The
leader of the escort, Philip Stedman, had grasped the
critical character of the situation at the first outcry,
and, putting spurs to his horse, had dashed into the
bushes. A warrior had seized his rein; but Stedman had
struck him down and galloped free for Fort Schlosser. A
drummer-boy, in terror of his life, had leapt over the
cliff. By good fortune his drum-strap caught on the branch
of a dense tree; here he remained suspended until the