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The savages tried to approach the shore, but, in spite of the fact that by careening the canoe to one side and lying down they were able to conceal themselves, they were prevented from landing by Austill and one or two other men. Two of the Indians jumped into the water and tried to swim to the shore, while the others, firing over the gunwale of the boat, were sorely annoying the whites.
Austill, who was in the bow of Dale's boat, received the first shock of the battle, but Cæsar promptly swung his boat around, and grappling the other canoe held the two side by side during the whole fight.
Young Austill made the journey alone and at night, at terrible risk, as he had to pass through a country infested with savages, but on his return brought, instead of assistance, an order for Col. Carson to evacuate the fort and retire to Fort Stephens.
These were, first Jerry Austill, the young man already spoken of, who was six feet two inches high, slender but strong, and active as a cat; second, James Smith, a man of firm frame and dauntless spirit; and third Cæsar, a negro man, who conducted himself with a courage and coolness fairly entitling him to bear the name of the great Roman warrior.
Austill, Smith and Cæsar volunteered at once, and Cæsar took his post as steersman, while the three stalwart soldiers were leaping into the canoe for the purpose of fighting hand to hand the nine Indians opposed to them. As they shot out from the shore the savages on the bank delivered a fierce fire upon them, but fortunately without effect.
Austill then rose, and snatching a war club from one of the Indians used that instead of his rifle. Eight of the savages were slain, and Dale found himself face to face with the solitary survivor, whom he recognized as a young Muscogee with whom he had been for years on terms of the most intimate friendship, and whom he loved, as he declared, almost as a brother.
The refugees were under command of Captain Evan Austill, himself a planter of the neighborhood.
Carson sent a young man of nineteen years of age named Jerry Austill, the son of Capt. Evan Austill to General Claiborne's head-quarters, with dispatches describing the situation and asking for reinforcements.
Austill shot one of the swimmers but the other escaped to the shore, and joined the savages there, informing them, as Dale supposed, of the weakness of his force, which they had not yet discovered.
Dale's boat was a very small one, and he to relieve it sprang into the Indian canoe, thereby giving his comrades more room and crowding the Indians so closely together as to embarrass their movements. The blows now fell thick and fast. Austill was knocked down into the Indian boat, and an Indian was about to put him to death when Smith saved him by braining the savage.
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