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The news of the attack and defeat of his men by the Indians, was brought to Mr. Ewing Young at Taos by a member of the unfortunate expedition. On learning the causes which brought this unpleasant termination to his enterprise, Mr. Young raised a party of forty men, consisting of Americans, Canadians and Frenchmen, and put himself at its head.
The man returned in ten days, bringing a message from the Choke-Cherry Indians, inviting the Frenchmen to their lodges.
He asked Bill to take some, but Bill declined on the same ground that he had before refused to appropriate it. Bill again advised Jack to lie down, and, to induce him to do so, he himself knelt on the raft, as he could in that position steer as well as when standing up. Thus they presented the smallest possible mark to the Frenchmen. Shot after shot was fired at them.
What followed I hardly know, for as the men struggled up from the ruin the fight began again, and the result was that I found myself with my father and five men in the little back place of all, where the door opened out into the valley; but of course it was locked and barricaded inside, and the door into the back room was held by my father, the foreman, and two others, who were keeping about a dozen Frenchmen at bay, yelling and cutting and thrusting at them.
Accordingly, on the Saturday after, the nine o'clock Dover heavy drew up at the "Bricklayers' Arms," with Mr. Jorrocks on the box seat, and the Yorkshireman imbedded among the usual heterogeneous assembly soldiers, sailors, Frenchmen, fishermen, ladies' maids, and footmen that compose the cargo of these coaches.
The Frenchmen gave a cheer, which told us how very numerous they were: they climbed up the side and into the chains like cats, and in a few seconds all was noise, confusion, and smoke. It was impossible to know what the result was to be for about a minute, when the cheers from our own men announced that the assailants had been beaten back.
I glanced back, and saw Monsieur Perrier, the avocat, hurriedly putting our luggage on a wheelbarrow, and preparing to follow us with it along the dark streets. I was too bewildered yet to feel any astonishment. We were in France, in a remote part of France, and I did not know what Frenchmen would or would not do.
Supposing that France contained nearly as many Germans as Frenchmen, and that they were ill-treated, Germany would interfere quickly enough and continue to do so until some fair modus vivendi was established.
One day in March he reappeared with his tattered and footsore followers, some of them carrying loads of buffalo-meat. Surely the condition of affairs was dismal in the extreme. More than a year gone, and as yet the Frenchmen did not even know where they were. The fierce heat of another summer was near.
The Frenchmen are seated at a little distance, receiving their supplies of coffee, meat, and bread, and occasionally passing jokes with the bourgeois, who is their demi-god, and for whom their respect and devotion are never lessened by his affability or condescension. The meal being finished, the table-furniture is rinsed in hot water and set aside until morning.
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