Yet
those boards and the packages upon them saved his life. They were the
only things that the warriors now saw, and all rowed straight towards
the raft. Meanwhile, Henry rose in the bushes at the edge of the bank
and took long and deep breaths, while they examined his rifle and
clothing. Before they had finished, he dived into the deep water once
more, and was again swimming swiftly against the current of the
Licking.

CHAPTER XX

THE COUNTER-STROKE

Colonel Benjamin Logan was standing in a small opening near the banks of
the Licking about five miles south of its junction with the Ohio. Dawn
had just come but it had been a troubled night. The country around him
was beautiful, a primeval wilderness with deep fertile soil and splendid
forest. His company, too, was good--several hundred stalwart men from
Lexington, Boonesborough, Harrod's Station and several other settlements
in the country, destined to become so famous as the Bluegrass region of
Kentucky. Yet, as has been said, the night was uneasy and he saw no
decrease of worry.

Colonel Logan was a man of stout nerves, seldom troubled by insomnia,
but he had not slept. His scouts had told him that there were Indians in
the forest ahead. One or two incautious explorers had been wounded by
bullets fired from hidden places. He and the best men with him had felt
that they were surrounded by an invisible enemy, and just at the time
that he needed knowledge, it was hardest to achieve it. It was important
for him to move on, highly important because he wanted to effect a
junction for a great purpose with George Rogers Clark, a very famous
border leader. Yet he could learn nothing of Clark. He did not receive
any news from him, nor could he send any to him. Every scout who tried
it was driven back, and after suffering agonies of doubt through that
long and ominous night, the brave leader and skillful borderer had
concluded that the most powerful Indian force ever sent to Kentucky was
in front of him. His men had brought rumors that it was led by the
renowned Wyandot chief, Timmendiquas, with Red Eagle, Black Panther,
Moluntha, Captain Pipe and the renegade Girty as his lieutenants.

Colonel Logan, brave man that he was, was justified when he felt many
fears. His force was not great, and, surrounded, it might be overwhelmed
and cut off. For the border to lose three or four hundred of its best
men would be fatal. Either he must retreat or he must effect a junctio