"Come with me, Bob!" said the younger boy, unable to undertake the mission alone.
"Courage!" cried the other in his ear; "I am sure all is well, and that I heard Kate's voice in the song of hallelujah that arose from the women when it was known the Indians had fled. All must be well, brother!"
Yes, all was well; and in another moment the boys were encircled in the loving arms of their anxious mother, while David, bleeding from a slight wound where an arrow had struck him, stood by with thanksgiving written on his bearded face.
If the boys had felt worried about the mother and Kate, fancy her feelings, knowing as she did that her loved ones were on the firing line and taking a thousand risks!
But it was all over now. Pat O'Mara declared that the red men had received a lesson they would not soon forget. Doubtless the valiant little company of home-seekers would not be troubled again while on the way to the Ohio.
They had not come out of the battle entirely unscathed. True, Heaven had been kind, and no one had been mortally hurt; but there were several suffering grievous wounds, who would have to be tenderly nursed for a time.
"It's lucky for us," declared the redoubtable Irish trapper, after the extent of the damage had been discovered, "thot the Shawanees niver poison their war arrows. Troth, but it would be a sorry day for the loike av us if thot same were thrue, as I've knowed some Injuns to do." And every poor fellow who had received a more or less painful wound echoed his words.
When the pioneers came to look around in the early morning light, expecting to find many dead Indians, for those guns had poured a hail of bullets directly into the midst of the onrushing foe, to their great surprise they failed to discover a single one. Their dusky comrades must have crept up in the darkness and removed both dead and wounded, fearing lest they fall into the hands of the whites.
It was high noon before the expedition could get started that day, there were so many things to be done toward repairing damages, attending the wounded, and waiting to hear the report of scouts sent out to learn whether the Indians had really left the vicinity.
Satisfied at length that it would be safe to travel, they made a start. But it might be noticed that from now on there would be no long straggling line of burdened horses, strung out along the buffalo trail. They huddled together in a bunch, and every man clung to his gun constantly, while eyes were kept on the alert for the slightest sign of the cunning enemy.