All set to work to restore the sufferer, but it was several hours before Harry was once more himself. Then he told the tale of his various misfortunes.
“I want no more fishing through the ice, or nothing more of your traps,” he said.
“Better break the trap up,” said Mrs. Parsons, and to please her Joe took the trap to a more remote part of the wood, and placed over it a sign of warning. Later on he caught in it two wolves, but that was all.
During the winter nothing was heard of the party who had gone after the Indians, and only once did the people of Boonesborough hear from the red men themselves, and that was when a party of four came to the fort more dead than alive and asked for shelter and something to eat. They were given something to eat and allowed to sleep in front of one of the fires, and went off the next day apparently grateful for this kindness.
It was not until the middle of March that word came in from the expedition that had gone to hunt for the missing whites. One of the men rode into the settlement at about noon. He was wounded in the shoulder and rode a horse that was utterly fagged out.
“We had two engagements with the redskins,” said this man. “One about ten days ago and one three days ago. We drove them from their village on the bank of a small river into a belt of timber eight or ten miles away. We killed not less than twelve of the band.”
“How many of our side were killed or wounded?” questioned Colonel Boone.
“That I can’t say exactly. I saw Hassock killed and Peter Parsons got an arrow through his left arm. That was at the first fight. At the second I was knocked over almost the first thing and fell into a gully. When I got around again the fighting was off in another direction. I tried to find the rest of the party, but could not, so I came home.”
Harry was anxious to learn if his father had been seriously hurt, but the messenger could give no particulars. He said that the Indians had been living in two villages about half a mile apart, and that there were prisoners at each village, although nobody had been able to find out exactly who the captives were.
These tidings only served to cast an additional gloom upon those living at the home of the Parsons and Winships.