Boone moved toward a slight elevation about a hundred yards away. He believed that it was occupied by a small Indian force which his gallant hundred could easily brush aside, if they ever came into close contact. Amid so much confusion and darkness he could reach the desired place unless they were revealed by the lightning. There was not another flash until they were more than half way and then the hundred lay so low among the bushes that they remained hidden.
"We're beatin' the savages at their own game," said Shif'less Sol. "They are always bent on stalkin' us, but they don't 'pear to know now that we're stalkin' them. Keep your eye skinned, Henry; we don't want to run into 'em afore we expect it."
"I'm watching," replied Henry in the same tone, "but I don't think I'll have to watch much longer. In two or three minutes more they'll see us or we'll see them."
Fifty yards more and another red flash of lightning came. Henry saw a feathered head projecting over a log. At the same time the owner of the feathered head saw him, fired and leaped to his feet. Henry fired in return, and the next instant he and his comrades were upon the skirmishers, clearing them out of the bushes and sending them in headlong flight. They had been so long in the darkness now that their eyes had grown used to it, and they could see the fleeing forms. They sent a decimating volley after them, and then dropped down on the ridge that they had won. They meant to hold it, and they were fortunate enough to find there many fallen trees swept down by a tornado.
"We've cut their line," said Boone, "an' we must keep it cut. I've sent a messenger to tell Colonel Clark that we've taken the place, an' since we've broke their front they'll be mighty good men, Indians and renegades, if they're ever able to join it together again."
The warriors returned in great force to the attack. They appreciated the value of the position, but the sharpshooters fired from the shelter of the logs.
The five, following their long custom, kept close together, and when they threw themselves down behind the logs they took a rapid accounting. Paul was the only one who had escaped unhurt. A tomahawk, thrown at short range, had struck Henry on the side of the head, but only with the flat of the blade. His fur cap and thick hair saved him, but the force of the blow had made him reel for a minute, and a whole constellation of stars had danced before his eyes. Now his head still rung a little, but the pain was passing, and all his faculties were perfectly clear and keen. A bullet had nicked Tom Ross's wrist, but, cutting a piece of buckskin from his shirt, he tied it up well and gave it no further attention. Jim Hart and Shif'less Sol had received new scratches, but they were not advertising them.