Henry walked back to the big beech and found his comrades yet wide awake and glad to hear that they would march in thirty-six hours.
"We'll be back in the thick of it," said Shif'less Sol, "an' I'm thinkin', Henry, that we'll have all we kin do."
"No doubt," said Henry.
CHAPTER XIX
A HERALD BY WATER
The start from Louisville was made and the great expedition began among the cheers of the women and children of the little place and from the men who were left behind. Most of the army were in boats which also carried great quantities of arms, ammunition and food. All of the little settlements buried in the deep woods of Kentucky, though exposed at any time to sudden and terrible raids, had sent volunteers. They took the risk nevertheless, and dispatched their best to the redoubtable hero, George Rogers Clark. Few people have ever given more supreme examples of dauntless courage and self-sacrifice than these borderers. Tiny outposts only, they never failed to respond to the cry for help. There was scarcely a family which did not lose someone under the Indian tomahawk, but their courage never faltered, though for nearly twenty years no man was safe a single hour from savage ambush. They stood fast and endured everything.
Henry, Paul and their comrades were not in the boats, but were with Daniel Boone who led a party of the best scouts on the southern shore. It was not only their business to find their enemy if he should be there, but to clear him out, unless he were in too great force, and it was a task that required supreme skill and caution. Throughout its whole course dense forests grew along the Ohio, and an ambush might be planted anywhere. The foliage was still thick and heavy on the trees, as it was not yet August, and one seldom saw more than a hundred yards ahead.
The boats, keeping near the southern shore where their flank was protected by Boone's scouts, started, the sunlight streaming down upon them and the water flashing from their oars. The scouts had already gone on ahead, and the five were among the foremost. In a few minutes the last sign of the new settlement disappeared and they were in the wilderness. At Boone's orders the scouts formed in small bodies, covering at least two miles from the river. The five formed one of these little groups, and they began their work with zeal and skill. No enemy in the underbrush could have escaped their notice, but the whole day passed without a sign of a foe. When night came on they saw the boats draw into a cove on the southern bank, and, after a conference with Boone, they spread their blankets again under the trees, the watch not falling to their share until the following night. Having eaten from the food which they carried in knapsacks they looked contentedly at the river.
"Well, this will be twice that we have gone up the Ohio, once on the water, and once on the shore," said Paul. "But as before we have Timmendiquas to face."