"Why, none on 'arth that I know of," said Bruce; "you've as cl'ar
and broad a trace before you as man and beast could make--a
buffalo-street,[2] through the canes; and, when thar's open woods, blazes
as thick as stars, and horse-tracks still thicker: thar war more than a
thousand settlers have travelled it this year already. As for danngers,
Captain, why I reckon thar's none to think on. Thar war a good chance of
whooping and howling about Bear's Grass, last year, and some hard
fighting; but I h'ar nothing of Injuns thar this y'ar. But you leave
some of your people h'yar: what force do you tote down to the Falls
to-morrow?"

[Footnote 2: The bison-paths when very broad, were often thus called.]

"Twenty-seven guns in all: but several quite too young to face an enemy."

"Thar's no trusting to years in a matter of fighting!" said the
Kentuckian. "Thar's my son Tom, that killed his brute at fourteen; but, I
remember, I told you that story. Howsomever, I hold thar's no Injuns on
the road; and if you should meet any, why, it will be down about Bear's
Grass, or the Forks of Salt, whar you can keep your eyes open, and whar
the settlements are so thick, it is easy taking cover. No, no, Captain,
the fighting this year is all on the north side of Kentucky."

"Yet, I believe," said Roland, "there have been no troubles there since
the defeat of Captain Estill on Little Mountain, and of Holder at that
place,--what do you call it?"

"Upper Blue Licks of Licking," said Bruce; "and war'nt they troubles
enough for a season? Two Kentucky captains (and one of them a south-side
man, too,) whipped in fa'r fight, and by nothing better than brutish
Injuns!"

"They were sad affairs, indeed; and the numbers of white men murdered
made them still more shocking."

"The murdering," said the gallant Colonel Bruce, "is nothing, sir: it is
the shame of the thumping that makes one feel vicious; thar's the thing
no Kentuckian can stand, sir. To be murdered, whar thar's ten Injuns to
one white man, is nothing; but whar it comes to being trounced by equal
numbers, why thar's the thing not to be tolerated. Howsomever, Captain,
we're no worse off in Kentucky than our neighbours. Thar's them five
hundred Pennsylvanians that went out in June, under old Cunnel Crawford
from Pittsburg, agin the brutes of Sandusky, war more ridiculously
whipped by old Captain Pipe, the Delaware, thar's no denying."

"What!" said Roland, "was Crawford's company beaten?"