"All right! Kill 'em if you want to!"

I pulled in and he drove alongside, crying:

"First thing you know you'll be runnin' into a nest o' them devils. Their
path and our path draws together an' enters the valley as one path."

"But we must reach the valley ahead of them!"

"Can't be did," he discouraged. "Best we can do is to sneak up on 'em
without bein' seen."

As a last hope I suggested:

"Perhaps after all they know nothing about the Dales."

"They know 'bout Abb's Valley. It's Black Hoof's band. Made off north,
then swung back down here, keepin' clear o' Howard's Creek. If they clean
out Abb's Valley they'll clean out the creek on their way home."

Scant consolation in all this. It was a great relief to reach the
Bluestone and prepare for action. We spanceled our horses in a tiny
opening well surrounded by woods. Cousin was familiar with the country and
led the way. Instead of making for the mouth of the narrow valley we
gained the end of one of its enclosing ridges and scouted along the
slope.

When we halted and Cousin carefully parted the bushes I observed we were
behind three cabins and high enough up the slope to see over them. The
valley at this point was not more than fifty rods wide, and appeared to be
even less because of the long walls stretching away for ten miles.

Some children were laughing at their play and were hidden from view as
long as they kept close to the door of the middle cabin. A dog was
growling and barking, but as he did not join the sport of the little ones
we concluded he was tied. One of the red cabins, that nearest to the mouth
of the valley, did not appear to be occupied.

Through the small window of the cabin farthest up the valley I glimpsed
two persons moving about when they passed between the window and the open
door. A few rods farther out toward the middle of the valley and nearer
the Bluestone than the unoccupied cabin, were the four walls of what had
been intended for a fort. It lacked the roof. For some reason the men had
suspended work on it, being too few to complete it, or else deciding the
cabins furnished sufficient protection.

Three men, all strangers to me, now entered our line of vision as they
walked out from the shelter of the middle cabin. Cousin told me their
names. The tall man with the long black beard was Granville, one of the
original settlers. He and his wife and two children, with Mrs. Granville's
sister, lived in the middle cabin. A short