We concluded to go as far as the houses, and if we could
not hear any thing of the Cowboys there, to return contented to camp.
Agreeably to our plan we set out, and had but just entered the wood when we found ourselves flanked by thirty or forty Cowboys, who gave us a hearty welcome to their assumed territories and we returned the compliment; but a kind Providence protected every man of us from injury although we were within ten rods of the enemy. They immediately rushed from their covert, before we had time to reload our pieces; consequently, we had no other alternative but to get off as well and as fast as we could. They did not fire upon us again, but gave us chase, for what reason I know not. I was soon in the rear of my party, which had to cross a fence composed of old posts and rails with trees plashed down upon it. When I arrived at the fence, the foremost of the enemy was not more than six or eight rods distant, all running after us helter-skelter, without any order; my men had all crossed the fence in safety, I alone was to suffer. I endeavoured to get over the fence across two or three of the trees that were plashed down; some how or other, I blundered and fell over, and caught my right foot in a place where a tree had split partly from the stump, here I hung as fast as though my foot had been in the stocks, my ham lying across the butt of another tree, while my body hung down perpendicularly; I could barely reach the ground with my hands, and, of course, could make but little exertion to clear myself from the limbs. The commander of the enemy came to the fence and the first compliment I received from him was a stroke with his hanger across my leg, just under or below the knee-pan, which laid the bone bare. I could see him through the fence and knew him; he was, when we were boys, one of my most familiar playmates, was with me, a messmate, in the campaign of 1776, had enlisted during the war in 1777, but sometime before this, had deserted to the enemy, having been coaxed off by an old harridan, to whose daughter he had taken a fancy; the old hag of a mother, living in the vicinity of the British, easily inveigled him away. He was a smart active fellow, and soon got command of a gang of Refugee-cowboy plunderers. When he had had his hack at my shins, I be-
