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must be confessed that both youths were thoroughly alarmed, and with good reason. Since Braddock's defeat they had heard of the uprising of the Indians at Nancoke, Lusher's Run, Willowbury, and several other small settlements, and had heard of the murder of several German families twenty-five miles to the north of Will's Creek fort, and the murder of Lee Cass, and his wife and four children, thirty miles down the valley. The outbreaks had not resulted from any united efforts on the Indians part, but there was no telling how soon the different tribes would dig up the war hatchet and descend upon all the frontier settlements in force and simultaneously.

From the top of the hill Henry had expected to go straight home, but this course would necessitate the crossing of a clearing quarter of a mile in extent and such a path he now deemed unwise to take.

"If they are following us, it will be dead easy for them to spot us in the open," he said. "We had