“What did you see, Joe?”
“A couple of Indians. There they are again—getting ready to cross the brook!”
“They came up quietly enough. What shall we do?”
“Let us get behind yonder bushes. They are on the trail of the game, and I don’t think they’ll come this way. But if they do we’ll have trouble just as sure as you are born,” concluded Joe Winship, and led the way to the shelter he had mentioned, quickly followed by his companion.
Joe Winship was a youth of fifteen, tall and as strong as outdoor life can make a boy of that age. He was the only son of Ezra Winship, a hardy hunter and pioneer, one of the number who did so much to build up our country in years gone by. Besides Joe, the family consisted of the boy’s mother and his two sisters, named respectively Cora and Harmony, both of whom were younger than himself.
Harry Parsons was a few months older than Joe. He too was an only son, and had one sister, Clara, two years older than himself. His father, Peter, had in years gone by been a cattle dealer doing business in and around Philadelphia, and had there married his wife, Polly, of Quaker stock.
It was during a visit to Williamsburgh that Mr. Peter Parsons had fallen in with Ezra Winship, about four years previous to the opening of this story. A chance acquaintanceship had ripened into true friendship, which speedily spread from all the members of one family to all the members of the other.
From Williamsburgh the Winships and the Parsons migrated to a small settlement in North Carolina known by the name of Jackson’s Ford. Here log cabins were built and some planting was done by the boys and the others, while Mr. Winship and Mr. Parsons spent a good deal of their time in bringing down game in the almost trackless forests to the west of the rude settlement—the game being used to supply the table with meat and the pelts being sold or traded for household commodities at a trading-post thirty-five miles away.
In those days—just previous to the Revolution of 1776—the great West was an unknown country to the American colonists. There were settlements in plenty along the Atlantic seacoasts, and for several hundreds of miles inland, but beyond this was, to them, the trackless forests and the unknown mountains, inhabited by game of all sorts and Indians.
One of the leading pioneers of those times, and one who will figure quite largely in our story, was Daniel Boone. Boone had already gone into the wilderness beyond the Kentucky River, and had come back to tell of the richness of the land there and the abundance of game. As a result a company was formed to settle the territory now known as the State of Kentucky, and among the first of the pioneers to take part in this move westward was Peter Parsons, who helped to erect a fort at what was afterwards called Boonesborough.