PUTTING OUT FROM SHORE.
Not a moment was to be lost. Everything depended upon boarding the flatboat and pushing off at once from shore. The party was so large that the craft was sure to be crowded, but its buoyancy was sufficient to carry still more.
To most of the party hurrying on board, the silence and inactivity of the Shawanoes were incomprehensible. That they had been partially dazed was fair to believe, but it could not continue long. The presence of the boat, with its sail still spread, against the bank, must tell the story to the fierce red men, who ought to be as quick to recover from it as were the pioneers.
It mattered not that the wind had failed. The one point was to get the flatboat away from land, and out into the stream. That done, a long step would be taken toward safety. The ambuscade would be flanked and avoided.
"You can't hurry too much," said the missionary, beginning to show nervousness now that the critical moment was at hand. He helped the women on board, and did what he could to prevent the confusion caused at this juncture by the crowding. He expected that a volley would come every moment from the gloom along the shore, and therefore held his station where his body would be most likely to shield the helpless ones.
Amid the confusion there was something approaching order, and it can be said that no time was thrown away. Within a minute of reaching the flatboat it seemed that every one of the pioneers was on board.
"Lay down," whispered Boone, addressing the settlers especially; "the varmints are sartin to fire afore you can get out on the river—"
"Dar goes dat canue," called Jethro Juggens, who managed to be the first on board.
The little boat had been swung around and fastened to the farther side of the more bulky craft, so as to allow the latter to approach nearer the land. The youth was doing what he could to aid his friends (really doing nothing), when he observed the canoe several feet away with the intervening space steadily increasing.
"Jump over after it," commanded Kenton, who himself would have done what he ordered but for the need of his presence on the flatboat.