Louder and louder grew the muttering of the coming war; closer and closer pressed the tribes from all points of the compass. Delawares, Wyandots, Shawnees, Cayugas and Mingos; the forests gave up war parties in full paint and feathers each day; councils were held, dances were danced; vengeance was to be had, no matter what the cost, for the wrong that had been done the great chief Logan by the whites.
The soldiers were everywhere drilling to meet the expected onslaught of the Indians; the celebrated fighting chiefs, Red Eagle and Cornstalk, were upon the border, ripe for the struggle; and Dunmore knew that if once they gave themselves seriously to the work of revenge, he’d be hard pressed to beat them back.
Soon after his return with the surveying party, Daniel Boone was made a captain by the governor and given charge of three garrisons. And to these came Oliver Barclay and his friends Eph and Sandy.
“Do you really think Chief Logan will strike?” asked Oliver, eagerly, of Boone.
“It looks like it,” answered the backwoodsman. “Logan has been wronged, and as he’s a man of spirit, even if he is only an Injun, why, he’s up and ready to avenge it. In my opinion there’ll be a flare along the whole line that’ll turn many a night into day.”
“What of the settlers in the outlying places?”
“I’ve been passing the word for them to come in. Better lose their property than their lives.”
“Are they coming in?”
“A good many of them are; others are waiting to make sure that the redskins will rise.” There was a pause and then Boone proceeded: “There’s one thing that worries me, though, and that’s the case of those people at the head of that small branch, to the southwest. The scouts sent out warned everybody all through that region but them; by a kind of misunderstanding they were not looked after. As it stands, nobody is sure if they know how things stand with the Indians or not.”
“You’re going to have them looked after, though,” said Oliver.