From the top of the bluff he saw down into the village of the Delawares.  The valley was alive with Indians; they were working like beavers; some with weapons, some painting themselves, and others dancing war-dances.  Packs were being strapped on the backs of ponies.  Everywhere was the hurry and bustle of the preparation for war.  The dancing and the singing were kept up half the night.

At daybreak Wetzel was at his post.  A little after sunrise he heard a long yell which he believed announced the arrival of an important party.  And so it turned out.  Amid thrill yelling and whooping, the like of which Wetzel had never before heard, Simon Girty rode into Wingenund’s camp at the head of one hundred Shawnee warriors and two hundred British Rangers from Detroit.  Wetzel recoiled when he saw the red uniforms of the Britishers and their bayonets.  Including Pipe’s and Wingenund’s braves the total force which was going to march against the Fort exceeded six hundred.  An impotent frenzy possessed Wetzel as he watched the orderly marching of the Rangers and the proud bearing of the Indian warriors.  Miller had spoken the truth.  Ft.  Henry vas doomed.

“Tige, there’s one of them struttin’ turkey cocks as won’t see the Ohio,” said Wetzel to the dog.

Hurriedly slipping from round his neck the bullet-pouch that Betty had given him, he shook out a bullet and with the point of his knife he scratched deep in the soft lead the letter W. Then he cut the bullet half through.  This done he detached the pouch from the cord and running the cord through the cut in the bullet he bit the lead.  He tied the string round the neck of the dog and pointing eastward he said:  “Home.”

The intelligent animal understood perfectly.  His duty was to get that warning home.  His clear brown eyes as much as said:  “I will not fail.”  He wagged his tail, licked the hunter’s hand, bounded away and disappeared in the forest.

Wetzel rested easier in mind.  He knew the dog would stop for nothing, and that he stood a far better chance of reaching the Fort in safety than did he himself.

With a lurid light in his eyes Wetzel now turned to the Indians.  He would never leave that spot without sending a leaden messenger into the heart of someone in that camp.  Glancing on all sides he at length selected a place where it was possible he might approach near enough to the camp to get a shot.  He carefully studied the lay of the ground, the trees, rocks, bushes, grass,—­everything that could help screen him from the keen eye of savage scouts.  When he had marked his course he commenced his perilous descent.  In an hour he had reached the bottom of the cliff.  Dropping flat on the ground, he once more started his snail-like crawl.  A stretch of swampy ground, luxuriant with rushes and saw-grass, made a part of the way easy for him, though it led through mud, and slime, and stagnant water.  Frogs and turtles warming their backs in the sunshine scampered in alarm