untry within twenty miles around, trudging alone sometimes for a week
or a fortnight before returning, and in this way he had learned to know
the distances, the directions, and the nature of the country lying
between different places,--a knowledge worth gaining by anybody, and
especially valuable to a boy who lived in a frontier settlement. He was
strong of limb and active as he was strong, and his "book knowledge," as
the neighbors called it, served him many a good turn in the woods, when
he was beset by difficulties.

Sam's father was one of the very last of the settlers to go into a fort.
He remained at home as long as he could, and went to Fort Sinquefield at
last, only when warned by an Indian who for some reason liked him, that
he and his children's lives were in imminent danger. That was on the
first of September, and when the Hardwicke family, black and white, were
safely within the little fortress, there remained outside only two
families, namely, those of Abner James and Ransom Kimball, who
determined to remain one more night at Kimball's house, two miles from
Sinquefield. That very night the Indians, under Francis the prophet,
burned the house, killing twelve of the inmates. Five others escaped,
and one of them, Isham Kimball, who was then a boy of sixteen,
afterwards became Clerk of Clarke County, where he was still living in
1857.

CHAPTER II.

THE STORMING OF SINQUEFIELD.

When the news of the massacre at Kimball's reached Fort Glass, a
detachment of ten men was sent out to recover the bodies, which they
brought to Fort Sinquefield for burial. The graves were dug in a little
valley three or four hundred yards from the fort, and all the people
went out to attend the funeral. The services had just come to an end
when the cry of "Indians! Indians!" was raised, and a body of warriors,
under the prophet Francis, dashed down from behind a hill, upon the
defenceless people, whose guns were inside the fort. The first impulse
of every one was to catch up the little children and hasten inside the
gates, but it was manifestly too late. The Indians were already nearer
the fort than they, and were running with all their might, brandishing
their knives and tomahawks, and yelling like demons.

There seemed no way of escape. Sam Hardwicke took little Judie up in his
arms, and, quick as thought calculated the chances of reaching the fort.
Clearly the only way in which he could possibly get there, was by
leavi