Braxton Wyatt, Coleman, four more Tories, and six Indians were
still alive in the strong log house. Two or three were wounded,
but they scarcely noticed it in the passion of conflict. The
house was a veritable fortress, and the renegade's hopes rose
high as he heard the rifle fire from different parts of the town.
His own band had been annihilated by the riflemen, led by Henry
Ware, but he had a sanguine hope now that his enemies had rushed
into a trap. The Iroquois would turn back and destroy them.
Wyatt and his comrades presented a repellent sight as they
crouched in the room and fired from the two little windows. His
clothes and those of the white men had been torn by bushes and
briars in their flight, and their faces had been raked, too,
until they bled, but they had paid no attention to such wounds,
and the blood was mingled with sweat and powder smoke. The
Indians, naked to the waist, daubed with vermilion, and streaked,
too, with blood, crouched upon the floor, with the muz'zles of
their rifles at the windows, seeking something human to kill.
One and all, red and white, they were now raging savages, There
was not one among them who did not have some foul murder of woman
or child to his credit.
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