“That is the one bad feature of moving into the Indian country, boys. It is bad enough to be wounded in a fight, but it is far worse to have those we love carried off to we don’t know where, and treated we don’t know how.”
“Has Red Feather said anything more?” asked Joe.
“No. He is waiting patiently for his release.”
“Don’t you suppose he will go on the warpath as soon as you let him go?”
“Perhaps. But if he does I shall hunt him down and have no mercy on him.”
“I wish all the fighting would come to an end,” said Harry, with a sigh. “I think I’d just like to have a few years at quiet farming and nothing else.”
“It would be nice, but I am afraid we are a long way from that yet,” answered Daniel Boone. And he was right, as later events on the bloodstained soil of Kentucky proved.
CHAPTER XXI
THE FOOT RACE AT THE FORT
The remainder of the winter passed without special incident. The cold weather seemed to come “all in a bunch,” as Joe put it, and after that it was quite mild, so that they could come and go as they pleased.
During those days of waiting the young pioneers were not idle. There were many things to do in and around the frontier home, and when not employed there the two youths went gunning or fishing, or else set traps. It was Daniel Boone himself who showed them how to make several traps of a superior sort, and with them the game captured was by no means to be despised.