“We’re obliged to you, young strangers, for what you tried to do for us. And we are sorry that you’ve run into this danger.”
“We rode this way on the word of Captain Boone that some settlers were perhaps unwarned of the Indian rising,” said Oliver. “Perhaps you are one of them, sir.”
“My name,” said the old man, “is Curley.”
“Do you know anything of the McAfees and Baldwins who live hereabout?”
“They are all here,” said Mr. Curley. “They grew suspicious of things yesterday, and rode over, thinking if the worst came we’d all be together, and so have a better chance for defense.”
There were at least a dozen grown men gathered in the Curley cabin, and almost as many boys, some of whom were old enough to take part in the defense. The wives and daughters of the settlers were, in the main, courageous and accustomed to the idea of danger; some of them, indeed, looked capable of taking up a rifle and using it as well as brother or husband. The heavy timber walls of the house were pierced by small openings, each of which permitted the barrel of a rifle to be protruded.
At each of these port-holes was stationed a man; keen eyes watched the movements of the Shawnees upon the edge of the clearing, and now and then a shot rang out or an arrow whizzed through the air as a red marksman sought to drive bullet or barb through an opening.
While Oliver talked to Mr. Curley and several of the other settlers and gave them all the information he possessed as to the state of the border, Eph Taylor selected an unguarded port-hole and protruded the eager muzzle of the faithful Jerusha.
“Take care of yourself, youngster,” said a man in buckskins at the next opening. “Don’t trust too much to your port-hole being narrow; there’s an Injun there on the edge of the timber who’s doing some almighty good shooting with the bow; several times he’s put one of his shafts right on through.”
Keenly, Eph scoured the timber line; from one place or another a rifle cracked, or a bowstring sang almost constantly. But he was not long in locating the marksman of whom the settler had spoken. He lay behind the uprooted butt of a huge tree which had resisted both axe and fire; a thick growth of weeds had sprung up about it, and it afforded a splendid vantage place for a marauder with a quick eye and a steady hand.