"What did the man look like who was shot on the tree?" he asked.
"He was my age, and had a heavy mustache," replied Reuben Atwood; and the lad's mind was relieved.
It was considered expedient to start while the five survivors of the enemy were scattered, and before they could get together. Three horses had been killed in the assault—they being in direct range—and a fourth was so badly crippled as to be useless. The five that remained were just enough for the party, now reduced by two.
While the men gathered up what muskets, ammunition, and other stuff had fallen into their hands, Barnabas dressed Nathan's skin-wound and squeezed his clothes partly dry. Once in the saddle the lad felt quite himself again, though he shuddered frequently to think of his narrow escape.
The victory was not without its sting. Poor Lindsay and Jones had answered their last summons, and the bodies had to be left where they had fallen. Their comrades would gladly have buried them, but duty to the imperiled settlers at Wyoming forbade a moment's delay.
The sun was just peeping above the horizon when the little band mounted the captured horses and rode away from the scene of death and bloodshed. For the first two miles they kept close watch as they trotted along the bridle-road, and then, the chance of a surprise being now past, they urged their steeds to a gallop.
But the country was very rugged, and the road winding, and it was necessary to walk or trot the horses much of the way. So it was close to nine o'clock of the morning when the travelers rode out on the elevated crest of the mountainous plateau, and beheld the lovely Wyoming Valley spread out before them in the soft July sunlight.
Here was the Susquehanna winding in a silver loop from mountain gap to mountain gap. There, a little to the westward, the hamlet of Wilkesbarre nestled at the base of the hills. Farther east the stockade of Forty Fort rose from the opposite lying bank of the river, and the flag was still fluttering from its staff.