"Give it to 'em!" roared Jadwin, dancing around. "Give it to the varmints!" And he rushed at another enemy and laid him low. But then he received an arrow in his shoulder, and was glad to follow his friends in their flight. Yells and groans resounded on all sides, and the hostile Indians continued to whoop as they ran from one building of the post to another, looking for any person who might have hidden himself. One sick trapper was found and he was tomahawked on the spot.
The majority of the enemy had concentrated at the front of the post and at one of the near corners, which was to the advantage of those trying to escape along the brook. By the time this flight was discovered, the Morrises and the others had reached the shelter of some trees. Then came a rush of the enemy, and shots flew thick and fast. But those from the post held the others in check and at last reached the forest.
"This way," said Jadwin. "I know a trail they'll have some difficulty in following," and he led the way under a cliff of rocks overhanging the Ohio River. Then he made a sharp turn to the eastward, and came out in another patch of timber where the underbrush was very heavy. Through the latter was a trail just wide enough for the passage of a single person. It was winding, so that to follow it was difficult, especially with so much snow falling.
From the post came loud shouts of triumph. The Indians and Jean Bevoir were now in sole possession, and those who had been forced to leave had brought next to nothing with them.
"We shall have to do what we can to reach Fort Pitt," said James Morris. "It is our one chance for safety."
He spoke the truth. Yet Fort Pitt was many miles away, and there was no telling how many dangers lay in the trail before them.
CHAPTER XII
WHITE BUFFALO'S PERIL
During the previous two years there had been many atrocities committed by the Indians, but the present year of 1763 was to witness horrors which had, as yet, seen few parallels in history.
The anger of the red men from the Great Lakes to Chesapeake Bay was at a white heat. They had been promised much by the French and the English during the intercolonial war, yet they had received little. The French could give them nothing, having lost practically all, and the English, generally speaking, counted the red men as being in the way. Besides this, many of the traders had treated the natives shamefully, securing their furs for next to nothing, giving them rum, and when they were intoxicated robbing them, and having no respect whatever for the families of the Indians.