“I take it,” said Tom Ross, “that the Iroquois can't get through at all unless they come along this way, an' it's the same ez ef we wuz settin' on solid earth, poppin' em over, while they come sloshin' up to us.”
“That's exactly it,” said Henry. “We've a natural defense which we can hold against much greater numbers, and the longer we hold 'em off, the nearer our people will be to Fort Penn.”
“I never felt more like fightin' in my life,” said Tom Ross.
It was a grim utterance, true of them all, although not one among them was bloodthirsty.
“Can any of you hear anything?” asked Henry. “Nothin',” replied Shif'less Sol, after a little wait, “nothin' from the women goin', an' nothin' from the Iroquois comin'.”
“We'll just lie close,” said Henry. “This hard spot of ground isn't more than thirty or forty feet each way, and nobody can get on it without our knowing it.”
The others did not reply. All lay motionless upon their sides, with their shoulders raised a little, in order that they might take instant aim when the time came. Some rays of the sun penetrated the canopy of pines, and fell across the brown, determined faces and the lean brown hands that grasped the long, slender-barreled Kentucky rifles. Another snake slipped from the ground into the black water and swam away. Some water animal made a light splash as he, too, swam from the presence of these strange intruders. Then they beard a sighing sound, as of a foot drawn from mud, and they knew that the Iroquois were approaching, savages in war, whatever they might be otherwise, and expecting an easy prey. Five brown thumbs cocked their rifles, and five brown forefingers rested upon the triggers. The eyes of woodsmen who seldom missed looked down the sights.
The sound of feet in the mud came many times. The enemy was evidently drawing near.
“How many do you think are out thar?” whispered Shif'less Sol to Henry.
“Twenty, at least, it seems to me by the sounds.” “I s'pose the best thing for us to do is to shoot at the first head we see.”