“The Table Rock!” he said.  “Here we can hold off all the savages in the West!”

The train increased its slow gait, and all hearts grew lighter.  The savages, as if determined that the wagons should not gain the shelter, pressed forward, but after a short but fierce combat were driven off, and the train circled triumphantly up the slope.

It was indeed all that Henry had claimed for it—­an ideal place for a protected camp, easy to defend, difficult to take.  Not all the surface was stone, and there was abundant grazing ground for the horses.  The spring that gushed from the side of the hill was inside the lines, and neither horse nor man lacked for pure water.

Now they fortified more strongly than ever, throwing up earthworks higher than before and doubling the sentinels.  Fallen wood was plentiful, and at Henry’s direction the fires were built high and large in order that they might drive away discouragement.  Then a semblance of cheerfulness made its appearance, and the women and children began to talk once more.

“Long Jim will go through if any mortal man can,” said Henry Ware to Daniel Poe.

“Pray God that he succeeds,” said Daniel Poe.  “Surely, no wagon train ever before ran the deadly gantlet that ours has run.”

Shif’less Sol strolled into the circle of fires, and sat down with Paul.

“Now, this is what I call true comfort fur a tired man,” he said.  “Here we are with nuthin’ to do but set here an’ rest, until somebody comes an’ takes us to Wareville.  Them savages out thar might save theirselves a heap o’ trouble by goin’ peacefully away.  Makes me think o’ that siege o’ Troy you wuz talkin’ about, Paul, only we won’t let any wooden horse in.”

“Maybe there is some likeness,” said Paul.

“Maybe thar is,” continued Shif’less Sol, in his cheerful tones; “but Tom Ross wuz right when he said the way them Greeks an’ Trojans fought was plumb foolish.  Do you think that me, Sol Hyde, is goin’ to take a tin pan an’ go beatin’ on it down thar among the bushes, an’ callin’ on the biggest boaster o’ all the savages to come out an’ fight me?  No, sir; I wouldn’t go fifty yards before I’d tumble over, with a bullet through me.”

Most of the people laughed, and the shiftless one continued with random, cheery talk, helping Paul to hearten them.  The two succeeded to a great degree.  There was mourning for the dead, but it was usually silent.  The borderers were too much accustomed to hardship and death to grieve long over the past.  They turned themselves to present needs.

The night was rainy, and unusually cold for that time of the year, and Henry Ware rejoiced because of it.  The savages in the thickets, despite their hardiness, would suffer more than the emigrants in the shelter of the wagons.  Henry himself, although he caught little naps here and there, seemed to the others able to do without sleep.  He kept up an incessant watch, and his vigilance defeated two attempts of the warriors to creep up in the darkness and pour a fire into the train.