s on, led to where some bundles of hay
were spread upon the ground. A large fire was soon blazing and
crackling a short distance away, around which the women were engaged in
preparing the evening meal, while the men, who wandered hither and
thither apparently without any definite object, neglected no precaution
which could insure them against attack through the night. The three
scouts had extended their beats several hundred yards, and completely
reconnoitered the ground intervening between them and the camp-fire, so
that they felt some assurance of safety as they joined their friends in
the evening meal.

Just as they all had finished partaking of this, a second rifle report,
as near to them as was the first, broke the stillness. The men started
to their feet and grasped their weapons. They gazed all around them, as
if expecting the appearance of some one, but failing to see any thing,
commenced speculating upon the cause of this singular repetition of
what had puzzled them so at first.

"It beats my larning to explain it," said old Smith.

"I tell you what it is," said son Harry, "that ain't an Injin's piece,
nohow you can fix it."

"How do you know that?" queried brother Jim.

"It's the same gun we heard this afternoon, and when you see a Shawnee
do that I'll believe our oxen don't know how to beller."

"We must be ready, my friends, for the worst," said one of the
emigrants, who, up to this time, had not referred to the danger at all.

Another reconnoissance was made by the scouts, but with no better
success than before. The darkness of the wood was such that they
labored at great disadvantage, and it would have been no difficult
matter for a single person to have remained concealed within a short
distance of the whites.

As the night progressed, the females and children retired to the wagon,
and the men chose their stations around it. The oxen, one by one, sunk
heavily to the earth, contentedly chewing their cuds, and a stillness
as profound as that of the tomb settled upon the forest. The fire had
smouldered to a few embers, which glowed with a dim redness through the
ashes, and occasionally disclosed a shadowy form as it hurried by.

Several of the men were sleeping soundly, for enough were on duty as
sentinels to make them feel as much ease as it was possible to feel
where they could never be assured of perfect safety. Two of the most
faithful sentinels were Jim and Harry Smith, who were stationed with