The column selected for attack was, naturally, that whose path led through the points which had been most strongly prepared and fortified.

This band mustered about three hundred; and was clearly too strong to be attacked, in open fight, by the forest bands.

Gerald and Ned had already talked the matter over in every light, and decided that a purely defensive fight must be maintained; each place where preparations had been made being held to the last, and a rapid retreat beaten to the next barricade.
The Spaniards advanced in heavy column.

At a distance of a hundred yards, on each side, marched a body of fifty in compact mass, thereby sheltering the main body from any sudden attack.
The first point at which the lads had determined to make a stand was the mouth of a gorge.

Here steep rocks rose perpendicularly from the ground, running almost like a wall along that portion of the forest.