"They're coming after us! A dozen canoes full of French and Indians are crossing right towards us! We've not a minute to lose!"
Major Rogers took one quick look, to make sure that Reuben was right, and then ordered his men to scatter through the forest and find their way by different routes to where they had hidden their packs.
FROM PERIL TO PERIL
The Rangers would, of course, have much preferred keeping together, but they quite understood the wisdom of their leader's plan, and dutifully did as they were told.
Seth struck off to the east, with the idea of making a long detour and then steering straight for the rendezvous. He could get through the forest at a surprising rate of speed, and ere many minutes had passed had put such a distance between himself and the enemy that he had little to fear from their pursuit.
But they were not the only source of danger. He knew well that the whole country round about was being constantly traversed by scouting parties of Indians in the pay of the French, and if he should be captured by any of them he was far more likely to be made the victim of their fiendish ingenuity as torturers, and to be finally tomahawked and scalped, than to be delivered over to the French as a prisoner of war.
Still he did not allow these thoughts, disquieting as they were, to depress his spirit. The dangers that threatened were just what were to be expected, and so long as he continued a member of Rogers' band they would have to be faced.
"The Major was right enough, of course, in making us scatter like this," he said to himself philosophically, "but all the same I'll be everlastingly glad when we all get together again."