“You ran well, Darry,” said Harry heartily. “When you are as old as I am you’ll outrun me without half trying.”
“I reckon it was something to best Ferris and the rest,” answered Darry simply.
“Ferris stubbed his toe on some rocks,” put in Luke Stout. “If it hadn’t been for that he wouldn’t have dropped behind at the last minute.”
“I reckon I won your knife fairly enough, Luke,” came from Joe. “But as I still have my own knife you can keep yours if you want it.”
“Oh, I don’t have to keep it,” responded Luke Stout; nevertheless later on he gladly enough took the knife back, saying he would square up another time. But he never did.
More settlers were now coming into the territory, and these included several old friends of the Parsons family, so those at the log cabin did not feel quite so lonely as before. Some of the settlers put up at the fort, but others staked out holdings up or down the river, and began to build homes of their own without delay.
This was the greatest year in all American history—the year 1776—when the colonies threw off the English yoke and declared themselves free and independent. News had already reached the frontier of the skirmish at Lexington, the battles of Concord and of Bunker Hill, and of how Washington was holding the British troops fast in Boston. Now came the news that the redcoats were to evacuate Boston, and the settlers at the fort went wild with excitement.
“It is a great victory for our colonies,” said Daniel Boone.
“It certainly means much,” said an officer under him. “We now know something of our own strength.”
Nevertheless, Daniel Boone was much disturbed by the tidings that war with England was a stern reality. It had been difficult in the past to subdue the Indians, now it would be doubly hard, for the red men would feel that the English soldiers would no longer help the colonists, and the colonists, having to fight the foe from over the ocean, would be in no position to send troops to the West to aid the settlers on the frontier.