Tom Ross and Long Jim continued to pull steadily with the long strokes that did not tire them, and the lights of the fort and houses sank out of sight. Before them lay the somber surface of the rippling river, the shadowy hills, and silence. The world seemed given over to the night save for themselves, but they knew too well to trust to such apparent desertion. At such hours the Indian scouts come, and Henry did not doubt that they were already near, gathering news of their victims for the Indian and Tory horde. Therefore, it was the part of his comrades and himself to use the utmost caution as they passed up the river.
They bugged the western shore, where they were shadowed by banks and bushes, and now they went slowly, Long Jim and Tom Ross drawing their oars so carefully through the water that there was never a plash to tell of their passing. Henry was in the prow of the boat, bent forward a little, eyes searching the surface of the river, and ears intent upon any sound that might pass on the bank. Suddenly he gave a little signal to the rowers and they let their oars rest.
“Bring the boat in closer to the bank,” he whispered. “Push it gently among those bushes where we cannot be seen from above.”
Tom and Jim obeyed. The boat slid softly among tall bushes that shadowed the water, and was hidden completely. Then Henry stepped out, crept cautiously nearly up the bank, which was here very low, and lay pressed closely against the earth, but supported by the exposed root of a tree. He had heard voices, those of Indians, he believed, and he wished to see. Peering through a fringe of bushes that lined the bank he saw seven warriors and one white face sitting under the boughs of a great oak. The face was that of Braxton Wyatt, who was now in his element, with a better prospect of success than any that he had ever known before. Henry shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had spared Wyatt's life when he might have taken it.
But Henry was lying against the bank to hear what these men might be saying, not to slay. Two of the warriors, as he saw by their paint, were Wyandots, and he understood the Wyandot tongue. Moreover, his slight knowledge of Iroquois came into service, and gradually he gathered the drift of their talk. Two miles nearer Forty Fort was a farmhouse one of the Wyandots had seen it-not yet abandoned by its owner, who believed that his proximity to Forty Fort assured his safety. He lived there with his wife and five children, and Wyatt and the Indians planned to raid the place before daylight and kill them all. Henry had heard enough. He slid back from the bank to the water and crept into the boat.
“Pull back down the river as gently as you can,” he whispered, “and then I'll tell you.”
The skilled oarsmen carried the boat without a splash several hundred yards down the stream, and then Henry told the others of the fiendish plan that he had heard.
“I know that man,” said Shif'less Sol. “His name is Standish. I was there nine or ten hours ago, an' I told him it wuz time to take his family an' run. But he knowed more'n I did. Said he'd stay, he wuzn't afraid, an' now he's got to pay the price.”
“No, he mustn't do that,” said Henry. “It's too much to pay for just being foolish, when everybody is foolish sometimes. Boys, we can yet save that man an' his wife and children. Aren't you willing to do it?”
“Why, course,” said Long Jim. “Like ez not Standish will shoot at us when we knock on his door, but let's try it.”