Long Panther cried out a warning to the warriors; then to Oliver he said:
“Run!”
HE INCREASED HIS SPEED
With his hands held behind him by the loosened thongs, Oliver started to run. To the right the Cayugas, the Mingos and the Wyandots were still pressing after the whites; but directly ahead all was clear. With his eyes on the boulder the boy ran slowly. This he thought the better way, as to show a burst of speed might excite the savages, and they might loose their arrows before the time agreed. As it was, their merciless natures quickly manifested themselves; when within a little distance of the rock an arrow whizzed by the boy’s head. Feeling sure that this would be instantly followed by more, he increased his speed; with a headlong plunge he was behind the boulder, and a whirring as of a hundred pairs of wings was all around him, the arrows knocking up clouds of dust as they struck the ground.
A wild yell went up from the Shawnees as the boy disappeared behind the rock; at once they saw that he had shrewdly calculated upon this shelter when he asked that they not fire until he reached it. And with hatchet, knife and spear, they rushed at him.
Oliver slipped his hands free of the thongs, his quick glance going about to see what was the next best thing to do. And then as the savages sped toward him he heard a shout—deep and charged with victory. A third regiment of whites had advanced to the support of the panic-stricken ones; their rifle fire was deadly and they came at full speed. The Mingos, the Wyandots and Cayugas faltered in the face of this unexpected blow; and they fell back upon the line of Delawares and Shawnees.
At sight of the cloud of warriors in full retreat, the Shawnees rushing upon Oliver paused. Here was graver and more earnest work than the harrying of a single boy and so they turned and hastened to the support of their friends.
Realizing what had happened, the white boy was off like a shot toward the lines of the advancing frontiersmen; how he gained this over a field swept by bullets and arrows he never understood, but gain it he did and a few minutes later with the rifle, powder-horn and bullet-pouch of a fallen soldier, he was loading and firing in the ranks with as much coolness and dispatch as the best of them.
The Indians must have had an advance party on the battle-ground some time before the main body, for it was now learned that their retreat was to a line of fortification made of logs, earth and brush. Behind this they stood firm. The Indians showed that they were possessed of many rifles and a good store of powder; for hours there was a blaze of fire from across the breastwork; and the barbed arrows drove like messengers of death among the whites. Fully fifteen hundred fighting men were behind the fortification and continually the voices of Red Eagle, of Cornstalk or Logan could be heard urging them to fight on.