Only one night after leaving the Eagle tavern did the boys spend under roof, for there were few inns along the way and as the borders of civilization were left farther and farther behind, none whatever. No adventure of importance befell them, however, until they reached Pittsburg, then a rough frontier hamlet built up about the fort from which it took its name. They had learned the road on their previous journey, and though a number of mishaps had occurred, including a hard fall John had had from a great rock he climbed in hope of getting a shot at a bear which had trotted across the rough trail some distance ahead of them, none of these were serious.
And thus, in the late afternoon of a hazy October day the young men drove slowly into the frontier settlement which would be the last sign of civilization they expected to see for a long time to come.
It might be years before they would return to Connecticut again. Return Kingdom, being an orphan, who had known no home except as the bound boy of Henry Catesby, had few near friends there. Mrs. Catesby and her daughter, Mary, had been very kind to him after Mr. Catesby’s death, but they were now living in town that Mary might attend school. Captain William Bowen, an old friend, was the only other person, unless it was Pete Ellis, who cared much about him, he thought. Why should he wish to return? There was only one other tie to bind him to Bruceville, his boyhood home. His mother’s grave was in the little churchyard there. She had been dead a long time, but he loved her memory. His father, killed in the Revolutionary war, he had never known.
As for John Jerome, he was one of a large family. His father was poor. Their little farm would scarcely support them all and work was scarce. That he would be missed John knew, but he also knew that his chances of getting along—of making something of himself—were better in the newer country. He would go home some day to visit, surely, but he had set out to make his own way, and it might be years before the opportunity again to see those he loved, would come.
Maybe both boys were thinking of the friends left behind, as very soberly they drove into Pittsburg. Their heavy, covered wagon drawn by one strong horse attracted no little attention as they passed down the main street of the rough, stockaded town of brick and log buildings, and with the easy familiarity of the early times many called out to them in a friendly, hospitable way to ask whence they came and whither they were going. There were words of astonishment, and grave shaking of heads when the travelers answered that they were bound for the unbroken West. Said one man in a worn-out soldier’s uniform:
“You’ll be safe enough if you go down the river with some big party, but you’ll be scalped, sure, if you go toward Sandusky Plains, as you say. Why, there’s terrible times! General St. Clair left Fort Washington not six weeks ago to march into that country and there’ll be murderin’ an’ scalpin’ to beat all get out! St. Clair was here in the spring, an’ all summer long he has been recruitin’ at Fort Washington for the biggest kind of fightin’; an’ it’s bound to come just as soon as he gets into the Redskins’ country. He’s got two boys o’ mine with him—young fellers ’bout same age as you, but I ain’t worried half like I would be if they was goin’ off by themselves, not a hundred miles west o’ here!”
As the boys drove up to the public house where they had stopped on their former trip to the West, they were recognized by a number of men seated on a split log bench just outside, smoking their pipes.
“Thunder an’ lightnin’! Where ye goin’?” exclaimed one of the loafers, a great, lanky fellow known as Tall Todd, as Kingdom and Jerome, rather enjoying the excitement their appearance caused, stepped up to shake hands with their acquaintances.
“Goin’ back to yer cabin beyond old Fort Laurens? By jinks, ye ain’t! It’s sartin death to both of ye. Wasn’t ye both purty near murdered an’ one of ye purty near burned to the stake? D’ye s’pose them Mingoes will hev forgot that ye killed three or four of the war party at yer cabin? D’ye s’pose that Big Buffalo devil will hev forgot his grudge ag’in ye? By jinks! a Redskin don’t never fergit these things! Fellers, we had all orter be hung fer murder if we let these young shavers throw their lives away, this here way!”
The vehemence with which Todd spoke, refusing to be interrupted, though both Kingdom and Jerome tried to break in on his exclamations, caused the boys some uneasiness; not so much for fear of their safety beyond the border, as for the possibility that their friends would be unpleasantly insistent that they must abandon their trip. They realized that their undertaking was hazardous, but they relied on their ability to make peace with the Indians as they had done before, and they were certain that if Captain Pipe, the Delaware Chieftain, were in his village, a few miles from which their cabin stood, Big Buffalo would not dare attack them again. When their horse had been led away to the stable, and all were seated before the door of the house which did duty as tavern, the young men explained these things to Tall Todd and the others.