Failure of the Assault

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the uproar died away, and some one in the watch-house cried out that the savages were running back to cover, having had enough of trying to capture the stockade.

I saw a man staggering across the inclosure toward his cabin with the blood streaming from a wounded cheek, and another sitting on the ground tying around his leg strips torn from his shirt, too proud to ask any of the women to help him; but I was like one in a horrible dream, rather than a girl who ought to have taken pattern after her father, mother, and brother, by standing up bravely with a rifle in her hands.

During the remainder of that terrible day I had no dear idea of what was going on around me, save that always there were the horrible cries of the savages, the crackling of rifles, and the shouts of men, until one's head seemed bursting, and the stiffing odor of burning powder hung close down over one's mouth and nose.

When the afternoon was about half gone, the word was passed around that the Indians were falling back, as if in despair, and I remember how I sat down on the threshold of our cabin, with the front of my gown over my head, and cried; but I could not have said why I wept, unless it was for joy and relief because the danger had passed, even if only for a short time.

There I sat, crying like a baby, when Jemima found me, and what she said was enough to cause my cheeks to burn with shame, for she spoke of what a girl who had come into Kentucky should be able to do at such a time as we had just passed through, until it seemed to me I had brought reproach not only upon myself because of my tears, but on all who knew me.