On The Kentuky Frontier

Excerpt: ... follow your trail, lads," Major Clarke said with a smile. "You shall do as you please." Now it would have suited me better to remain in safety aboard the flat-boat, yet there was a chance that now I might show my desire to repair the wrong committed, and I replied as if my heart was full of courage: "We may not be of much assistance, sir; but I should like it better if we had a hand in the work." Whereupon Paul stepped closely to my side as if to say I had but spoken the thoughts which were in his mind. Thus it was that we two followed the volunteers, knowing full well we might fall into an ambush, and certain we would soon be battling with our enemies. Among these men led by Major Clarke, there was not one ignorant of how the work before him should be accomplished. No orders, were necessary. Pg 134 The volunteers moved ten or twelve paces apart, stretching far up from the river until they were what would be called by military men a "skirmish line," and then began the advance, while the flat-boat remained moored to the bank and two settlers were paddling at full speed up-stream to warn the other craft. Save for the bungling movements of Paul and myself, not a sound could be heard as we pressed forward, keenly on the alert for the enemy, and ready for an immediate attack. It was as if a company of shadows flitted here and there amid the underbrush, so far as might be told from sound, and although the advance was noiseless, it was made swiftly. Paul and I were left somewhat in the rear because of not being able to keep the pace silently, and during more than half of the hour which passed, I failed to see a single man ahead of us. Then suddenly, although we knew full well it must soon come, the report of a rifle rang out Pg 135 on the still air; after this another and another, until there could be no question but that the foremost of the party had come upon those of whom we gave warning. My timorousness was forgotten on the instant