Presently the little enclosure was filled with crying children, boastful boys, frightened girls, serious women, and thoughtful men. The gates were shut; the younger children, under the care of the older women, sent to the safest room in the four corner block-houses, while the matrons set about preparing food, moulding bullets, making cartridges, and lending to the contemplated defence such other assistance as they could. The men and youths fell in with their respective companies and repaired immediately to their several stations, long practice and frequent alarms having made them familiar with the duties expected of them.
A long time they watched that evening, but no plumed, painted, savage figure could be seen through the trees, no sound broke the wonted stillness of the hills. Some of the little band of frontiersmen looked askance at young McCullough. Had he given a false alarm? himself deceived, taken them from their needed labors only to array them against some imaginary peril?
But no; he was the keenest scout and best woods-man in the settlement. A long row of sinister notches on the stock of his rifle marked the red marauders he had sent to their last account. It could not be; yet, if the Indians were coming, why did they not present themselves?
Old Colonel Sheppard and Major Ebenezer Zane, his second, did not hesitate; they trusted the young man. Requests to return to their homes were refused, the gates were kept closed, and by and by the women and children who could do so disposed themselves for the troubled sleep of an anxious night. There were keen watchers on the walls, but nothing broke the usual stillness.
The morning was dull and gray. Clouds of mist and fog dropped silently from the crest of the hills, sending down long, ghostlike arms writhing through the treetops over the town; still no sign of the enemy.
Smarting under the curious glances and sneers of some of the men, McCullough at last volunteered to go out and reconnoitre. Colonel Sheppard accepted his offer. While some one saddled his magnificent black horse, he broke from the group surrounding him and walked across the parade toward the farthest block-house, a room in which had been allotted to the family of Major Zane.
A tall, striking-looking young woman stood in the door-way. Most of the women in the fort wore linsey-woolsey frocks of the plainest cut, and, while some had Indian moccasins on their feet, the majority were barefoot. This girl was dressed in the fashion of, say, some six months before. There was a touch of brightness and color in her smart frock, albeit a few months of frontier wear had sadly dimmed its gayety. Shining silver buckles overspread her small, daintily shod, arched instep. Her short sleeves, extending only to the elbow, left bare her young brown arms, which had been white when she came to the settlement. The kerchief, crossed over her breast, but open at the neck, afforded a ravishing glimpse of her beautiful throat. Under her fair hair blue eyes sparkled, lighting, in spite of herself, with feeling as she comprehended the manly figure of young McCullough.
He was fluent enough in speech ordinarily; but now he blushed, hesitated, and stumbled awkwardly, as he dragged off his coonskin cap and bowed low before her.
"Good-morning, Mistress Elizabeth," he at length managed to stammer out; "how passed you the night?"
"As well, sir, as one could on a hard floor 'twixt crying children, frightened mothers, and quarrelling lads."