or four men, and tried to get between the rest and the fort and
cut off their return. "They kept us in a half-moon," says
Gardiner, "we retreating and exchanging many a shot... defending
ourselves with our naked swords, or else they had taken us all
alive.... I was shot with many arrows, but my buff coat preserved
me, only one hurt me." The English soldiers of those days wore
back and breast pieces of steel over their buff coats. A few days
later, the Indians, believing Gardiner dead, came again and
surrounded the fort, and, as the old record says, "made many
proud challenges and dared the English out to fight," but
Gardiner ordered the "two great guns" set off once more, and the
Indians disappeared.

Finding the fort at Saybrook so well defended, the Pequots fell
upon the settlement at Wethersfield, killed a number of men
working in the fields, and carried off two young girls. Flushed
with this success, they paddled down the river in their canoes
and when they passed the Saybrook fort they set up poles, like
masts, in the canoes and, by way of bravado, hung upon them the
clothes of the Englishmen whom they had murdered. The men in the
fort fired on the canoes, but the distance was too great. One
shot just grazed the bow of the boat in which were the two young
English girls. The Indians passed safely and carried their
captives with them to the Pequot country.

The Connecticut men now determined to put a stop to the
depredations of the Pequots. It was a serious undertaking, for
there were only about two hundred and fifty Englishmen in all
Connecticut at this time, and there were several hundred Pequot
warriors. Help was asked from the colonies in Massachusetts, and,