The Movements Of The Leaders,
As They Groped Their Way, Had Been Descried By The Sharp-Sighted
Enemy.
As Sinclair, who was in the advance, was putting some
branches aside, he was shot through the body.
He fell on the
spot. "Take me to my brother,'' said he to Campbell. The latter
gave him in charge to some of the men, who conveyed him out of
the swamp.
Sublette now took the advance. As he was reconnoitring the fort,
he perceived an Indian peeping through an aperture. In an instant
his rifle was levelled and discharged, and the ball struck the
savage in the eye. While he was reloading, he called to Campbell,
and pointed out to him the hole; "Watch that place," said he,
"and you will soon have a fair chance for a shot." Scarce had he
uttered the words, when a ball struck him in the shoulder, and
almost wheeled him around. His first thought was to take hold of
his arm with his other hand, and move it up and down. He
ascertained, to his satisfaction, that the bone was not broken.
The next moment he was so faint that he could not stand. Campbell
took him in his arms and carried him out of the thicket. The same
shot that struck Sublette wounded another man in the head.
A brisk fire was now opened by the mountaineers from the wood,
answered occasionally from the fort. Unluckily, the trappers and
their allies, in searching for the fort, had got scattered, so
that Wyeth, and a number of Nez Perces, approached the fort on
the northwest side, while others did the same on the opposite
quarter.
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