"I got in late last night to the block-house; I had been out on a scout for Colonel Quimby and was gone more than a week. The Shawanoes and Wyandots are raising the dickens, and I knowed thar war lots of 'em hanging round the settlement. I told your father, bein' that war so, he had better wait whar he war for a few days, or until we could spare several of the boys to go with him.
"Howsumever, instead of that leadin' him to do as I wanted, it made him and your mother twice as determined to be off. They wouldn't wait at the block-house for you younkers to come in, as they orter done, and made up thar minds to start the fust thing in the mornin'. I talked so hard with your father that I war sure he would change his mind, and so, bein' powerful tired, I went to sleep. I slept so late that when I woke up they'd been gone an hour. I swallered two or three mouthfuls and started after them."
Wharton explained what he had seen for himself, all of which indicated that Blazing Arrow and his two warriors had laid an ambush for the boys.
"Thar ain't no doubt of that after what you tell me. They larned that you war goin' to make a start for the block-house, so they went a good long way along the trail and waited for you to walk into thar open jaws."
"Which we might have done had we gone farther; but, that being so, how was it father and mother rode this way without harm when they must have passed the very spot where Blazing Arrow and the rest were waiting for us?"
"I came by 'em," said Kenton, with another smile.
"You could go by any number of them, for you know how. You were on foot and were prepared for them, but they were on horseback."
"Which leads me to say agin that Brigham Edwards and his wife ain't fools, onless they've become so powerful sudden. Your father knowed thar war three places whar, if thar war any ambush laid, it war sartin to be in one of 'em. Countin' from the settlement, the fust was whar the path goes close to them falls, for the lay of the land jes' invites it; the second are at the ravine down thar, only a little way beyond whar you are standin' this minute; and the third are ten miles this side of the block-house, whar the trail goes through that swampy spot, and the branches are so thick over it that they almost sweep you off the back of your hoss. If he could pass them there three places without runnin' agin the varmints, he would be safe."
"And where were Blazing Arrow and the rest in waiting?"
"At the swampy place I war speakin' of; the varmints made up thar minds that they would be sure of you by goin' close to the block-house."