A great defeat they had suffered at Wareville the year before still stung, and the spur of revenge was added to the spur of need.  What they felt they ought to do was exactly what they wanted to do, and they were full of hope.  They did not know that the stream flowing over the mountains, now so small, was propelled by a tremendous force behind it, the great white race always moving onward, and they expected nothing less than a complete triumph.

Active warriors passed through the deep woods, bearing belts and messages.  Their faces were eager, and always they urged war.  A long journey lay before them, but the blow would be a master stroke.  They were received everywhere with joy and approval.  The tomahawks were dug up, the war dances were danced, the war songs sung, and the men began to paint their faces and bodies for battle.  A hum and a murmur ran through the northwestern forests, the hum and murmur of preparation and hope.  Only the five, on their little island in the lake, yet heard this hum and murmur, so ominous to the border, but they were ready to carry the message through the wilderness to those to whom the warning meant the most.

* * * * *

The largest wagon train that had yet crossed the mountains into Kain-tuck-ee toiled slowly along the Wilderness Road among the foothills, bearing steadily toward the Northwest.  The line of canvas covers stretched away more than a hundred in number, and contained five hundred souls, of whom, perhaps, half were men and boys capable of bearing arms, the rest women and children.

They looked upon mountain, hill and forest, river and brook, with much the same eyes as those with which Henry and Paul had beheld them not so very long before, but they were not seeking at random in the wilderness as the Wareville people had done.  No, they moved forward now to a certain mark.  They were to join their brethren at Wareville and Marlowe, and double the strength of the settlements.  Word had come to them over the mountains that the little outposts in the vast wilderness lived and flourished, and the country was good.  Moreover, they and their strength were needed.  Wareville and Marlowe looked for them as eagerly as they looked for Wareville and Marlowe.

Spring was deepening, and already had drawn its robe of green over all the earth, but Daniel Poe, the commander of the wagon train, paid little attention to its beauty.  He was nearly sixty years of age, but in the very prime of his strength—­a great, square-shouldered man, his head and face covered with thick, black beard.  His eyes had their habitual look of watchful care.  They had seen no Indian sign as they crossed the mountains, but he knew now that they were on the Dark and Bloody Ground, and the lives of five hundred human beings were a heavy responsibility.

“You are sure the country is entirely safe?” he said to Dick Salter, one of his guides.