Colonel turned
to me as he sat writing down the names of the volunteers.

"Davy," said he, "when you are grown you shall not stay at home, I
promise you. Take your mare and ride as for your life to McChesney, and
tell him to choose ten men and go to the Crab Orchard on the Wilderness
Road. Tell him for me to turn back every man, woman, and child who tries
to leave Kentucky."

I met Tom coming in from the field with his rawhide harness over his
shoulders. Polly Ann stood calling him in the door, and the squirrel
broth was steaming on the table. He did not wait for it. Kissing her, he
flung himself into the saddle I had left, and we watched him mutely as
he waved back to us from the edge of the woods.

* * * * * * *

In the night I found myself sitting up in bed, listening to a running
and stamping near the cabin.

Polly Ann was stirring. "Davy," she whispered, "the stock is oneasy."

We peered out of the loophole together and through the little orchard we
had planted. The moon flooded the fields, and beyond it the forest was
a dark blur. I can recall the scene now, the rude mill standing by the
water-side, the twisted rail fences, and the black silhouettes of the
horses and cattle as they stood bunched together. Behind us little Tom
stirred in his sleep and startled us. That very evening Polly Ann had
frightened him into obedience by telling him that the Shawanees would
get him.

What was there to do? McAfee's Station was four miles away, and Ray's
clearing two. Ray was gone with Tom. I could not leave Polly Ann alone.
There was nothing for it but to wait.

Silently, that the children might not be waked and lurking savage might
not hear, we put the powder and bullets in the middle of the room and
loaded the guns and pistols. For Polly Ann had learned to shoot. She
took the loopholes of two sides of the cabin, I of the other two, and
then began the fearful watching and waiting which the frontier knows
so well. Suddenly the cattle stirred again, and stampeded to the other
corner of the field. There came a whisper from Polly Ann.

"What is it?" I answered, running over to her.

"Look out," she said; "what d'ye see near the mill?"

Her sharp eyes had not deceived her, for mine perceived plainly a dark
form skulking in the hickory grove. Next, a movement behind the rail
fence, and darting back to my side of the house I made out a long
black body wriggling at the edge of the withered corn-patch. They wer