Adventure Magazine Cover — page 93: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Battle of the Kettles Boyce passed this chain around the trunk of the little tree in a loose loop, and caught the hook in a link. He was standing with one foot on the boat and the other on the bank while he did this. The others were picking up cooking utensils and bags of food to go ashore, when like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky the catastrophe burst upon them. From the woods above them there came the rattling crash of a score or more of rifles, and that most blood-curdling of all human utterances, the Indian war-whoop— sounding as if it might have issued from a hundred savage throats! III AE NEVER was a battle opened more Ge abruptly. There was no time on the boat to plan, give orders or assume a posture of defense. Boyce sprang on board and ran’ for his gun. At the same time Fossett and Chinoweth came running for their lives down the steep bank. Chino- weth’s cheek had been scraped by a bullet, while Fossett’s right arm hung helpless, and he carried his gun in his left hand. Not twenty feet behind them came a horde of naked, yelling Indians. They counted on being able to rush the boat and capture it with all on board by the sheer weight of their numbers. As they came down the slope, the boat’s people fired a volley, and no less than six redskins pitched headlong, some of them turning grotesque triple somersaults before their bodies splashed into the water. The others never slackened their pace. Chinoweth, being nearest the bow of the boat, was able to leap on board from the bank; but Fossett, who was several yards to his right, had to plunge into the water and swim around to the stern, which was slowly swinging out into the stream. He gripped his rifle under his crippled right arm and paddled with his left. The Indians followed the two right to the water’s edge and struck at them with clubbed guns; one even attempted to swim after Fossett. But the sturdy Irishman, seizing his gun in his left hand, turned and dealt the brave such a clout on the head that he sank and was seen no more. Jack was quickly dragged into the stern of the boat by Moore and McIlvaine. Meanwhile others of the Indian tidal QI wave had tried to board the boat at the bow, while some seized the gunwale and tried to draw it to the bank. The mortality among these was heavy: Crepps, who had reserved his fire, shot one of them squarely through the top of the head and then, re- versing his gun, split the skull of another. One big buck made a long leap from the bank, but just as his foot touched the gun- wale Crist, whirling his gun in a cyclonic circle, struck him full in the face with the stock, crushing in the skull as one would smash the shell of a gourd. Repulsed by the desperate resistance of the white men, the remainder of the would- be boarders fled up the bank to join their companions, who had already taken sta- tions behind trees and were pouring a regu- lar and galling fire into the boat. The at- tacked party had now had time to reload the rifles, and the battle raged with deadly fury. The bullets of the enemy kept up a terrifying tattoo on the kettles: “Clink! Clink-clank! Clunk! Clink-a- clunk !”’ Crist remembered afterward that it had sounded almost amusing at the time. Now and then a ball would strike some kettle whose rim was partly in air, and it would vibrate to a deep, raucous, “clangl’’ The palefaces, as was usual in the early history of the frontier, displayed great superiority in their marksmanship, and made one bullet count for every half dozen of the Indians’. Crist’s first thought had been for Susan. After the opening volley he looked around and saw that her husband had stowed her in a crouching position in a nook between two stacks in the inner row of kettles, where she was almost immune from harm. Sour old Silas fought like a Trojan that day. As cool as an old guardsman, he loaded, picked out his man and fired with never the change of a muscle in his hard, dry face. Young Tom Humphreys, too, with milk-white face and teeth tightly clenched on his lower lip, quitted himself like a man. The men on the boat soon saw that they must change its position, if possible. Had they been able to present her side to the shore, the kettles would have formed a powerful breastwork; but she lay bow on to the bank, chained to the sycamore, and a heavy body of the savages had concentrated themselves directly in front of her so that their fire raked the whole length of the gang- MICLOOOK C@ inn