But women were made of pretty good stuff in those early days, and especially the wives of the pioneers. They had always faced trials that would easily daunt their weaker sisters of to-day; and believed that their place was beside the loyal men who were their only protectors, and who stood ready to lay down their lives for those they loved.
There were others who, while they disliked to see their friends leaving them, were ready and willing to do everything in their power to assist the enterprise. These loyal ones gave many a hard day’s work, helping to fetch in the timber for the flatboat, and hew the straight logs that were so necessary for its construction. Their good wives sacrificed some of their treasured stores in order that those who were following the beckoning finger of adventure might have an abundance with which to start their new life.
Bob and Sandy worked hard, too, bringing in game that could be cured after the Indian method, so that there need be no lack of food aboard the flatboat, when once they started on their long journey.
The trapping season being over, the boys collected their traps, and oiled them before storing them away, ready to be packed with their other belongings. Sandy loved to picture the glorious time they would have in their new surroundings, with not a white man, possibly, within hundreds of miles, and the whole wilderness to draw upon for furs and game and fish.
“I hope you may never be disappointed,” Bob used to say to him, after listening with a smile to one of these periodical outbursts. “But you know things are not always what they seem. There may be plenty of game away out there, and lots of fur-bearing animals; but what do we know about the new dangers that we are apt to face? I do not speak in this way before our mother and sister; but, between us, I do not like the idea of being closer to those French than can be helped. They are a villainous lot, as father says, and hold all English as their mortal enemies.”
“But, on the other hand,” Sandy would reply, shrewdly, “there is a change of heart coming to these same French. Have we not heard it said that, should the Colonies break away from the Mother Country, and rebel, France, being at war with England, would be on our side? That might make some of these rascally French trappers our so-called friends. I should not like that, and especially in the case of that precious pair, Jacques Larue and Henri Lacroix, whom I hope to meet face to face, at the muzzle of my gun, some happy day.”
The Indians were beginning to show their teeth again, in a manner that was not at all reassuring to the settlers who would make up the reduced colony, after the flatboat had started down the Ohio.
Judge of the delight of the settlers, when one fine day, who should appear at the colony that he had helped to found, but the backwoodsman, Daniel Boone. He was on his way to Boonesborough, and in haste at that, for the attitude of the Shawanees had become so threatening that there was danger of the struggling little settlement falling into the hands of the savages. ([Note 8.])
He was keenly interested in all that had gone on since his last visit, and was pleased when told that the bold adventurers had decided to take their fate in their hands, and proceed far into the land of the setting sun. Such a move his spirit could easily sympathize with, for most of his life had been taken up with just such splendid and hazardous enterprises.
“If only I had the time,” he said to Mr. Armstrong, “dearly would I love to accompany you in this venture, for I myself have long wished to set eyes on that wonderful Mississippi of which you speak. My best wishes will go with you; and, if a written word of mine may do you any good by the way, you shall have it for the asking. Even among the Indians I have a few good friends; for they know me as an honorable enemy in time of war, and one whose word once given is never broken.”