e 'lowed it was best to hustle along here and git in front of the
fighting, instead o' losing time trying to find where they quit the creek.
You're sticking along, we 'low."

"No need with all you men. I must carry my despatches over the mountains
to-morrow."

"Better think twice afore trying it alone. By to-morrow the mountain trace
will probably be shut in by the reds," declared Hacker ominously.

"Then I must take my chances of breaking across country. His Lordship must
have the despatches at the earliest possible minute."

"Of course," Runner agreed. "Wish you luck even if you got a Quaker
stomick when it comes to killing the vermin. But if you want to git across
you'd better start at once. Them two or three scouts shows the devils are
closing in. Every hour saved now means a dozen more chances for your hair
to grow."

As I believed the footing the fellows found was left by the three Indians
I had pronounced to be friendly, I was not much exercised in my mind by
the warning. I did not believe the Indians would seek to cut off the
settlement. They must strike and be off, and they would prefer to have the
settlers in flight over the mountains, with the inevitable stragglers
easily cut off, than to have them stubbornly remaining in the cabins and
fort.

If time was not vital, and providing the Shawnees could bring a large
force, then an encircling movement would be their game. But Cornstalk and
Logan would not lead a big force into any of the valleys. They knew as
well as the whites that the war was to be won by one decisive battle.

These isolated raids up and down the western valleys were simply of value
in that they might unnerve the settlers and keep them from leaving their
cabins to join the army Dunmore proposed to send against the Shawnee
towns. And last of all I was fagged by my long ride and would have one
night's unworried sleep, let the risk be ever so great.

The dinner, much belated, was now ready, and the workers were asked to
assemble in and around the Davis cabin. Four men were left to do sentinel
duty, and the children were told to keep on with their work and play as
they would be served after the men had eaten. Huge pot-pies were hurried
from all the cabins to where the backwoodsmen were waiting to prove their
appetites.

Several jugs of rum garnished the feast. The Widow McCabe contributed a
scanty stock of tea, but the men would have none of it on the grounds that
it did not "stick to the