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horses to the girth of some of them. The curious birds of America were calling among the trees and from the far heights dropped the myriad speckles of frost. Now and then something cracked in the forest like musket-fire. There wasn’t any sense the trees needed us there. They were about their own business certainly. We made a racket of harness, spurs, equipment, things knocking and shrugging from movement,and hooves skittering and clacking on the earth, but the troopers barely spoke a word and for the most part we rode in silence as if by prior agreement. But it was the trees that pressed the silence on us. The major issued his orders with his arms and hands, and these were replicated down the line. Something was going on ahead, we sensed it before we saw it. Suddenly a huge nervousness invaded us, and you could almost hear the bones in our bodies tightening, closing, and our hearts seemed captive in our chests and desirous to escape. Men coughed to clear the spit of fright from their throats. We could hear a great sound of burning up ahead, as if ten thousand starlings were massing there, and through the trees we saw violent yellow and red flames, and a great pulse of black and white smoke everywhere. We came out of the trees at last. The fire was burning at the bottom of a wide meadow. There were four or five big lodges made of logs of redwood, and only one of these was burning, creating the storm of flames and smoke all on its own. The major spread us out across the meadow, as if he might be intending to charge against this conflagration. Then we were told to trot down slowly, our muskets at the ready. The townsmen were everywhere it seemed, running along the length of the Indian encampment, shouting at each other, and soon I saw the figure of Henryson, holding a big firebrand aloft. They were as busy as lawyers whatever was the work. Soon we were close and Henryson came back to talk to the major, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then we were broken into sections and we were told there were Indians down in the copses to the right. We spurred on our horses and what with the steep decline felt like we were fleeing down the slope.Troopers Pearl and Watchorn were near me as normal, and then the thickness of the smaller trees obliged us to dismount, and a few dozen pushed on into the copse on foot. Then there was screaming and calling, and shrieking cries. We fixed bayonets to our muskets and now rushed forward, trying to avoid the springing undergrowth. Down from the burning lodge the smoke had plundered everywhere, into the copses, into every cranny, so that it was nigh impossible to see and our eyes smarted horribly. We saw the shapes of Indians and stabbed them with our bayonets. We worked back and forth through the milling bodies and tried to kill everything that moved in the murk. Two, three, four fell to my thrusts, and I was astonished not to be fired on, astonished at the speed and the horror of the task, and the exhilaration of it, my heart now not racing but burning in my breast like a huge coal. I stabbed and I stabbed. I saw John Cole stabbing, I heard him grunting and cursing. We wanted the enemy stilled and destroyed so that we could live ourselves. Every second I thought I would feel the famous tomahawk split my Irish skull, or the molten bullet pierce my chest. But nothing seemed to happen except our savage grunting and thrusting. We were a-feared to fire our muskets in case of murdering each other. Then all the work seemed done and all we heard then was the crying of survivors, the terrible groaning of the wounded. The smoke cleared and we saw at last something of our battlefield. Then my heart shrank in its nest of ribs. It was just women and children all around us. Not a brave among them. We had torn into the little hiding place of the squaws, where they had tried to take refuge from the burning and the killing. I was affrighted andstrangely affronted, but mostly at myself, because I knew I had