"Yes. I heard Bevoir speak of it to another Frenchman. He says he will make
Barringford suffer before he is done with him."
"Oh, the rascal!" burst out Dave. "I wish—"
"Never mind, lad, I know how you feel. But every moment is precious. We must hasten to the post and prepare for the attack."
"Yes! yes! Come!" and Dave himself led the way.
Not to excite the suspicions of either red men or white, they did not use the canoe which was at hand, but recrossed the stream on the tree trunk which had brought them over in the first place. This done, they cast the tree adrift and lost not a moment in mounting their steeds.
"'Tis a long, long ride," said Jadwin. "But if the horses can make it without a night's rest, so much the better for us and for all of the others."
It proved a ride that Dave Morris never forgot. All that day and through the night the three pressed on, through the mighty forests and across the creeks and small rivers. More than once a horse would stumble and almost throw his rider, and the branches of the trees often cut them stinging blows across the faces and necks and hands. Once Dave received a long scratch on the left cheek from which the blood flowed freely, but he did not stop to bind up the wound, nor did he complain.
"To save father, and Henry, and the post!" Such was the burden of his thought. He remembered how that other post, on the Kinotah, had been attacked. Should the new post fall, he well knew that it would go hard with all who had stood to defend it.
When at last the post was gained Dave was more dead than alive. Chafed by his hard ride, and almost exhausted, he tumbled rather than leaped from the saddle. It was the middle of the night and the coming of the three had provoked a small alarm, so that all at the trading-post came to learn what was in the air.
Jadwin's story was soon told, and Dave and Sanderson corroborated it.
Without delay James Morris called the whites and Indians around him.