All during the spring and summer the Hudsons had worked in this fashion. Jim and Pa had planted their crops and enlarged the clearing by felling trees, while Ma had sat ready with the Kentucky rifle, and looked for hostile Indians.
This year of 1777 was a fearful one for Kentucky settlers. Some had been captured or killed by Indians; others had returned to Virginia discouraged by repeated Indian attacks. The Hudsons, however, had not been molested and Pa Hudson was determined to stay on his land. It was the first farm he had ever owned; he loved every inch of this lush Kentucky wilderness. He and Jim continued to gather melons. Jim worked faster than his father, because each time Pa moved from one vine to another, he had to pick up his rifle lying close by on the ground.
Suddenly Jim raised his head and listened. Then he turned to his father. “Pa, I hear something groaning. Do you?”
Pa seized his rifle and was on his feet immediately. “Where, son?”
Jim cocked his head toward the right. “Over there. Listen. There it is again.”
At this moment Ma Hudson called, “Pa, I hear groaning.” She was already picking her way among the stumps toward the sound, the rifle grasped firmly in her hands.
Pa went striding through the melon patch. “Wait, Ma. Let me go first.” Soon he was ahead of her, with Jim beside him.
The three made their way through the tangled brambles into woods so dense the Hudsons seemed to be walking in twilight. Quite suddenly they saw a bridled horse standing quietly just ahead of them. In a moment the groaning sound came again, this time to the left of where Jim was standing.
He whirled around, scrambled over a large fallen tree and cried, “Why, here’s a boy! Kind of a small boy, too.” Jim started to stoop down toward the prostrate form.
Pa sprang to his side. “Wait a minute, son.” He peered through the gloom and saw an Indian boy smaller than Jim, dressed in a long blue cloth shirt, his face streaked with hideous vermilion. “Maybe this is a trick,” Pa muttered. “Perhaps he’s been put here to lure us into a trap.” Holding his rifle ready, Pa started looking about in the shadowy woods.