"Mackinac is gone!"
"The savages have massacred the garrison at Fort Dearborn!"
"They are planning to attack the settlements on the Mississippi. If the Sioux join the confederacy—" cheeks paled at the possibility.
The greatest body of Indians in America resided on the Mississippi. Who could say at what hour the waters would resound with their whoops? Thousands of them could reach St. Louis or Cahokia from their homes in five or six days. Immense quantities of British gifts were coming from the Lakes to the Indians at Peoria, Rock Island, Des Moines.
"Yes, we shall attack when the corn is ripe," said the Indians at Fort Madison.
"Unless I hear shortly of more assistance than a few rangers I shall bury my papers in the ground, send my family off, and fight as long as possible," said Edwards, the Governor of Illinois.
In Missouri, surrounded by Pottawattamies, champion horsethieves of the frontier, and warlike Foxes, Iowas, and Kickapoos, the settlers ploughed their fields with sentinels on guard. Horns hung at their belts to blow as a signal of danger. In the quiet hour by the fireside, an Indian would steal into the postern gate and shoot the father at the hearth, the mother at her evening task.
Presently the settlers withdrew into the forts, unable to raise crops. With corn in the cabin loft, the bear hunt in the fall, the turkey hunt at Christmas, and venison hams kept over from last year, still there was plenty.
Daniel Boone, the patriarch of about forty families, ever on the lookout with his long thin eagle face, ruled by advice and example. The once light flaxen hair was gray, but even yet Boone's step was springy as the Indian's, as gun in hand he watched around the forts.
Maine, Montana, each has known it all, the same running fights of Kentucky and Oregon. Woe to the little children playing outside the forted village,—woe to the lad driving home the cows,—woe to the maid at milking
