“Who are you?  You are not my mother.  She is dead,” he cried, starting up wildly, and looking at her with brilliant eyes.

Betty dropped the fan and rose quickly to her feet.  What had she done?  A terrible thought had flashed into her mind.  Suppose he were not delirious, and had been deceiving her.  Oh! for a hiding-place, or that the floor would swallow her.  Oh! if some one would only come.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Betty ran to the door.  To her great relief Mrs. Martin was coming up.

“You can run home now, there’s a dear,” said the old lady.  “We have several watchers for to-night.  It will not be long now when he will commence to mend, or else he will die.  Poor boy, please God that he gets well.  Has he been good?  Did he call for any particular young lady?  Never fear, Betty, I’ll keep the secret.  He’ll never know you were here unless you tell him yourself.”

Meanwhile the days had been busy ones for Col.  Zane.  In anticipation of an attack from the Indians, the settlers had been fortifying their refuge and making the block-house as nearly impregnable as possible.  Everything that was movable and was of value they put inside the stockade fence, out of reach of the destructive redskins.  All the horses and cattle were driven into the inclosure.  Wagon-loads of hay, grain and food were stored away in the block-house.

Never before had there been such excitement on the frontier.  Runners from Ft.  Pitt, Short Creek, and other settlements confirmed the rumor that all the towns along the Ohio were preparing for war.  Not since the outbreak of the Revolution had there been so much confusion and alarm among the pioneers.  To be sure, those on the very verge of the frontier, as at Ft.  Henry, had heretofore little to fear from the British.  During most of this time there had been comparative peace on the western border, excepting those occasional murders, raids, and massacres perpetrated by the different Indian tribes, and instigated no doubt by Girty and the British at Detroit.  Now all kinds of rumors were afloat:  Washington was defeated; a close alliance between England and the confederated western tribes had been formed; Girty had British power and wealth back of him.  These and many more alarming reports travelled from settlement to settlement.

The death of Col.  Crawford had been a terrible shock to the whole country.  On the border spread an universal gloom, and the low, sullen mutterings of revengeful wrath.  Crawford had been so prominent a man, so popular, and, except in his last and fatal expedition, such an efficient leader that his sudden taking off was almost a national calamity.  In fact no one felt it more keenly than did Washington himself, for Crawford was his esteemed friend.

Col.  Zane believed Ft.  Henry had been marked by the British and the Indians.  The last runner from Ft.  Pitt had informed him that the description of Miller tallied with that of one of the ten men who had deserted from Ft.  Pitt in 1778 with the tories Girth, McKee, and Elliott.  Col.  Zane was now satisfied that Miller was an agent of Girty and therefore of the British.  So since all the weaknesses of the Fort, the number of the garrison, and the favorable conditions for a siege were known to Girty, there was nothing left for Col.  Zane and his men but to make a brave stand.