“Colonel Clark is at Harrodsburg, Miss,” said the elder hunter, gravely; “and we shall find it difficult to penetrate there, for Blackfish, the Shawnee chief, is round it with his band.”
Ruby Roland smiled with some little appearance of scorn.
“My father was a French officer, and I am the adopted child of the first war-chief of the West,” she said. “I suppose you think you could get into Harrodsburg, do you not?”
“I suppose so, Miss,” said Boone, quietly.
“Very well; then I will go with you,” said this little fragile-looking girl, with equal calmness. “You are both good warriors and scouts, and yet I fooled you both last night.”
“What! was it you, then, as was on this hyar island?” asked Kenton, in amazement. “Why, whar in the Old Scratch did ye hide, Miss, ef it ain’t axin’ too much?”
Ruby laughed, and pointed to a great tree that overhung the camp-fire itself.
“Up there in a hollow, and heard every word you said. Had you been Shawnees, as you made me think by your whoops, both would have been dead long ere this. I made up this fire half an hour ago, and neither of you waked.”
Boone and Kenton looked at each other in silence for several minutes. The practiced woodmen had been outwitted by this quiet, modest little girl, and both instinctively felt that she was no common personage.
Daniel Boone rose to his feet and shook himself, then looked to the priming of his rifle and examined his weapons before he spoke. At last he said: