be off to the war and done with it.

We were working near the road that day Thurst Miles came galloping
out of the woods, waving his cap at us. We ran to meet him--my
father and I and the children. He pulled up a moment, his horse
lathered to the ears.

"Injuns!" he shouted. "Git out o' here quick 'n' mek fer the
Corners! Ye 'll be all massacreed ef ye don't."

Then he whacked the wet flank of his horse with a worn beech bough,
and off he went.

We ran to the house in a great panic. I shall never forget the
crying of the children. Indians had long been the favorite bugbear
of the border country. Many a winter's evening we had sat in the
firelight, fear-faced, as my father told of the slaughter in Cherry
Valley; and, with the certainty of war, we all looked for the red
hordes of Canada to come, in paint and feathers.

"Ray," my father called to me, as he ran, "ketch the cow quick an'
bring 'er 'long."

I caught her by the horn and brought her to the door quickly.
Mother was throwing some clothes into a big bundle. Father met me
with a feather bed in his arms. He threw it over the back of the
cow and bound it on with a bed-cord. That done, he gave me the
leading-rope to tie about her horns. The hoofs of the flying horse
were hardly out of hearing when we were all in the road. My mother
carried the baby, and my father his sword and rifle and one of the
little ones. I took the three older children and set them on the
feather bed that was bound to the back of the cow. They clung to
the bed-cord, their hair flying, as the old cow ran to keep up with
us, for at first we were all running. In a moment we could hear
the voices of people coming behind. One of the women was weeping
loudly as she ran. At the first cross-road we saw Arv Law and his
family coming, in as great a hurry as we, Arv had a great pike-pole
in his hand. Its upper end rose twenty feet above his head.

"What ye goin' t' dew with thet?" my father asked him.

"Goin' t' run it through the fust Injun I see," said he. "I 've
broke the lock o' my gun."

There was a crowd at Jerusalem Four Corners when we got there.
Every moment some family was arriving in a panic--the men, like my
father, with guns and babies and baskets. The women, with the
young, took refuge at once in the tavern, while the men surrounded
it. Inside the line were youths, some oddly armed with slings or
clubs or cross-guns. I had only the sword my father gave me a