He was shot in several places, and one arm and one thigh broken, as he stood by the open door, and fell calling out to his wife to close it.

This she did; but the Indians chopped a hole in the stout planks with their tomahawks, and tried to crawl through.

The woman, however, stood to one side and struck at the head of each as it appeared, maiming or killing the first two or three.
Enraged at being thus baffled by a woman, two of the Indians clambered on the roof of the cabin, and prepared to drop down the wide chimney; for at night the fire in such a cabin was allowed to smoulder, the coals being kept alive in the ashes.

But Mrs.Merrill seized a feather-bed and, tearing it open, threw it on the embers; the flame and stifling smoke leaped up the chimney, and in a moment both Indians came down, blinded and half smothered, and were killed by the big resolute woman before they could recover themselves.

No further attempt was made to molest the cabin or its inmates.
One of the incidents which became most widely noised along the borders was the escape of the two Johnson boys, in the fall of 1788.