SOME TRANSACTIONS IN SCALPS History would be a very orderly affair, could the dry-as-dust historians have their way, and doubtless it would be thrillingly romantic at every turn if the novelists were able to control its current.

Fortunately neither one nor the other has much influence, and the result, in the long run, is that most novels are shockingly tame, while the large body of history is loaded down with picturesque incidents, which if used in fiction, would be thought absurdly romantic and improbable.
Were our simple story of old Vincennes a mere fiction, we should hesitate to bring in the explosion of a magazine at the fort with a view to sudden confusion and, by that means, distracting attention from our heroine while she betakes herself out of a situation which, although delightful enough for a blessed minute, has quickly become an embarrassment quite unendurable.

But we simply adhere to the established facts in history.

Owing to some carelessness there was, indeed, an explosion of twenty-six six-pound cartridges, which made a mighty roar and struck the newly installed garrison into a heap, so to say, scattering things terribly and wounding six men, among them Captains Bowman and Worthington.
After the thunderous crash came a momentary silence, which embraced both the people within the fort and the wild crowd outside.

Then the rush and noise were indescribable.