While feeding their cattle, settlers were shot from ambush by the lurking foe; and on March 11th, a family barricaded within a burning house, which they were defending with desperate courage, were rescued in the nick of time by the militia.

No episode from Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales surpasses in melancholy interest Harry Hicks's heroic defense of his little fort on Bean Island Creek.

Surrounded by the Indians, Hicks and his family took refuge within the small outer palisade around his humble home.

Fighting desperately against terrific odds, he was finally driven from his yard into his log cabin, which he continued to defend with dauntless courage.

With every shot he tried to send a redskin to the happy hunting-grounds; and it was only after his powder was exhausted that he fell, fighting to the last, beneath the deadly tomahawk.