Lyon gave his head one brief shake.
"We're right in the middle of the biggest hornet's nest the country ever saw," he replied. "Looks ez ef we couldn't git past without another terrible fight."
"And you, Drouillard?" Adam Colfax asked of the Creole.
"Eet ees hard to go on," replied Drouillard in his broken English, "but we cannot go back at all. So eet ees true that we must go on. Eet ees is the only thing we can do."
"But how?" said Adam Colfax. "We cannot use up all the ammunition that we have in these battles. If we were to reach Pittsburgh in that condition we'd be a burden instead of a help."
"But as Mr. Drouillard says, we can't go back," said Truesdale.
They sat dumbly a minute or two, no one knowing what to propose, and all looking toward the southern bank, where they believed the chief danger to lie. The dark green forest made a high black line there in the night, a solid black until it was broken by a pink dot, which they knew to be the flash of a rifle.
"They are jeering at us again," said Adam Colfax.
"'Tain't no jeer, either," said Thrale, as five or six pink dots appeared where the one had been, and faint sounds came to their ears.
Lyon confirmed the opinion of his brother scout.