"I shall be very glad to go with you, my friends. Tell me, how is Blackfish these days?"

"You come down!" repeated Owaneeyo.

"I just told you," said Boone, "that I shall be glad to come down. I prefer, however, to have you wait until I finish with my tobacco." In the hunter's heart there was hope that Peleg would discover his predicament and bring him aid before he should be seized by the angry warriors.

"Make yourselves comfortable," continued Boone pleasantly. "You see I cannot get down from here and I cannot get away from you." The scout paused a moment and glanced at his would-be captors.

"You like tobacco?" he resumed. "When I have this cured I will give some of it to you and we will smoke together."

The Indians were becoming impatient, and plainly were unaware of what the scout was doing. Continuing his conversation and making more inquiries concerning his friends in the Indian town, he did his utmost to hold the attention of his dangerous visitors while he gathered together some armfuls of tobacco.

Carefully arranging the bundles of the dry tobacco between the poles and standing where he was able to look directly down into the faces of his enemies, Boone suddenly cut the strings by which the sticks of tobacco were held. At the same moment, with his arms full of the dried leaves, he leaped down upon the Indians, and instantly filled their mouths and eyes with dry tobacco dust. The Shawnees were blinded and well-nigh suffocated in the little tobacco house. There were sneezes and shouts and cries from the startled warriors, who now were unable to see even the direction in which the door was located.

Darting from the little house, the scout made his escape and ran swiftly to his cabin. In a moment he seized his trusty rifle, but as he returned to the tobacco house he saw the Indians running blindly and staggering toward the woods.

Boone restrained his impulse to fire upon the fleeing warriors, and called to Peleg and Israel, who with several of the younger members of the settlement were now hurriedly approaching, all of them prepared to pursue the departing Shawnees.

"Do not go after them!" called Boone.

Reluctantly the young men halted, and Peleg said: "Why do you not want us to chase them? We might have had every one of them."

"If the Shawnees do not go on the warpath, why should we?"

"They were on the warpath for you!" said Israel. "It was lucky you got away."

Boone laughed silently as he recalled the appearance of the Indians when he had thrown the tobacco dust into their faces. "I am sure," he said, "the Shawnees will remember what I said to them and how they were treated by me. Perhaps it will do more good than it will to shoot them."

The months pa.s.sed and the peace of the settlement remained unbroken. Few even suspected the terrible struggle which was awaiting them.

The game in the forest was becoming somewhat scarce. The settlers, increasing steadily in numbers, now were scattered from the Kentucky River to the Ohio. It was commonly believed that the Indians had finally accepted the coming of the whites as inevitable, and no longer were ready to dispute their occupation of the western forests.

The one marked exception was Daniel Boone. To all the a.s.sertions of his friends he replied by expressing his own conviction that the red men were simply biding their time. No one was more familiar with the Indian ways and thoughts than the scout and he was positive that they had not forgotten the injuries which they had sustained at the hands of the whites. Sooner or later they would strive to obtain vengeance and at the same time unite in a supreme endeavour to drive the hated people from the lands which they believed to be their own.

"I am more convinced than ever that trouble is brewing," said Boone one day to Peleg and Israel, who now were his frequent companions. "I know Simon Girty, and a worse man never lived. He is a renegade and a traitor. He has given up living among the whites, and in everything but colour and in their better qualities he has become an Indian. I am sure that we shall hear from him before many months have pa.s.sed."

Little the great scout dreamed that even while he was expressing his opinion to the boys, runners at that very time had been sent by Simon Girty to many of the northwestern tribes, urging them all to lay aside the jealousy they felt for one another and unite in one common cause against the white invaders.

The following spring the storm burst. As the pattering raindrops sometimes fall at the beginning of a downpour, so among the scattered settlements a renewal of attacks by prowling bands of Indians indicated what was to follow.

One day when Daniel Boone returned to his home he was unusually cast down. He explained that he had just learned of an attack which a party of twenty-five Wyandottes had made upon Estill's Station. The warriors had stolen into a little cabin which was apart from the others in the settlement. They had seized the occupants--a woman and her two daughters--and tomahawked and scalped all three. The bodies were still warm when they were discovered upon the floor of the cabin by neighbours. The scout told what followed.

"Immediately Captain Estill collected a band of twenty-five daring men and followed the Indians more swiftly than I followed the band which took Jemima prisoner. The Wyandottes at first seemed to be frightened and began to run, but at last they made a stand on one side of a creek, while the whites were on the other. They were not more than fifty yards apart and every man was sheltered behind a tree or rock and firing at any enemy that could be seen. Captain Estill had lost one third of his men and had shot about as many of the Indians, but the braves were still returning his fire, and showed no signs of leaving. He thought if he should keep up that kind of a fight, every one at last would be killed, unless perhaps it should be the very last white or Indian.

"Mindful of this, Captain Estill sent out a party of six men, led by Lieutenant Miller, telling them to creep around and attack the Indians on their flank. But the chief was as shrewd as the captain, and as soon as he saw that the fire of the whites was slowing up in front of him, he instantly made a stronger attack upon the men that were left. Jumping into the water, they fell upon the captain and his men, driving them before them and killing a good many. Those who escaped finally got back to the Station, and you can readily see how alarmed the people are."

"What happened to Captain Estill?" inquired Israel, greatly shocked by the story of his father.

"He and eight more of his men were killed, and, besides, four were wounded."

"That's more than half that went out, isn't it?" inquired Peleg.

"Yes," answered Daniel Boone.

The report of the misfortune which had overtaken the men of Estill's Station was speedily succeeded by another report no less alarming. A band of Indians had crept up to Hoy's Station and there had stolen two little boys.

Quickly Captain Holder gathered a band of seventeen angry men and started in pursuit of the Indians. It was not long before he overtook them, but he and his men were driven back after more than half the party had fallen.

The alarm now became widespread. The success which had attended the plans of the Indians encouraged them to continue their efforts.

Sometimes singly, frequently in small parties, they crept close to the settlements and by their stealthy attacks kept the people in continual alarm.

There was no one now to dispute the great scout's prophecy that more serious trouble was to come. Within a few weeks an army of Indians, made up of bands from many of the northwestern tribes and numbering nearly six hundred warriors, began its march from Chillicothe.

The renegade Girty was in command. The little army moved with great caution, and their approach was unsuspected by the whites. One August night they arrived at Bryant's Station, surrounded it, and prepared to dash upon the unsuspecting people the moment the gates should be opened the following morning.

CHAPTER XXIV

A DECOY AND AN ATTACK

The fort at Bryant's Station was for the protection of forty cabins placed in parallel lines upon a little hill on the bank of the Elkhorn River.

All through the night the garrison had been preparing as soon as daylight came to depart from the fort to carry aid to the men at Hoy's Station. A messenger had brought word to Bryant's Station of the defeat which almost had overwhelmed Holder and his men. If Girty's band of six hundred Indians had arrived a few hours later they would have found in the fort only a few women and children, besides a small number of old men, unable to fight.

Afterward it was learned that the Indians were listening all through the night to the sounds of the activities within the fort, and when they saw the lights gleaming from the blockhouse and the cabins they must have suspected that news of their coming already had been received by the inmates.

However, they made no attempt to steal upon the fort in the darkness, although Girty and the Indian chiefs were planning and arranging their attack for the following day.

For some strange reason many of the forts on the border had been built at a considerable distance from the springs upon which the people depended for their water. The fort at Bryant's Station was no exception.

By Girty's direction many of the Indians placed themselves in hiding, within shot of the spring. One hundred selected warriors also were stationed at a distance from the spring. The latter were ordered to open a sharp fire and make their presence known to the garrison. Doubtless the hope of the red men was that the actions of this party would draw the white defenders from their place of safety.

If their plan succeeded Girty then expected that the other band of warriors instantly would rush upon the opposite gate of the fort and hew it down with their tomahawks while the men were chasing the little decoy force. In this manner all the leaders of the attacking force expected to make their way into the little cabins within the stockade.

When daybreak came the garrison was almost ready to open the gates and march to the a.s.sistance of their friends at Hoy's Station.

Suddenly there was a furious and continued discharge of rifles accompanied by such hideous yells and screams and whoops that they terrified not only the women and children of Bryant's Station, but alarmed even the men, accustomed though they were to the methods of Indian warfare.

Running to the stockade and peering out through the loopholes, the startled white men saw before them a small band of Indians. These warriors were plainly exposed, yelling and making the most insulting and furious gestures toward the fort.

All this was so different from their usual custom that some of the older men of the fort warned their comrades that a trick of some kind was being played upon them.

"It is a decoy party," said one of the men positively. "They will draw you out of the fort and before you know it you will find yourselves surrounded by more than a hundred of those howling savages."

"That is right" said another. "My suggestion is that we all make for the other side of the fort. I believe the Indians are trying to draw us out on this side and then attack us on the other."