Yet he loved his forest home and the free, wild life he led.  Nor was the element of peril lacking to the daily lot—­peril which had not found them yet, but which might spring upon them unawares at any moment.  For after years of peace and apparent goodwill on the part of the Indians of the Five Nations, as this tract of debatable land had come to be called, a spirit of ill will and ferocity was arising again; and settlers who had for years lived in peace and quietness in their lonely homes had been swooped down upon, scalped, their houses burnt, their wives and children tomahawked—­the raid being so swift and sudden that defence and resistance had alike been futile.

What gave an added horror to this sudden change of policy on the part of the Indians was the growing conviction throughout the settlement that it was due to the agency of white men.

France, not content with the undisputed possession of Canada, and of vast tracts of territory in the west and south which she had no means of populating, was bitterly jealous of the English colony in the east, and, above all; of any attempts which it might make to extend its western border.

Fighting there had been already.  Humphrey had heard rumours of disasters to the English arms farther away to the south.  He had heard of Braddock’s army having been cut to pieces in its attempt to reach and capture the French Fort Duquesne, and a vague uneasiness was penetrating to these scattered settlers, who had hitherto lived in quietness and peace.

Perhaps had they known more of the spirit of parties beyond their limited horizon, they would have been more uneasy still.  But habit is an enormous power in a man’s life.  Humphrey had gone forth into the forest to kill meat for the family larder three or four days in the week, in all seasons when the farm work was not specially pressing.  He came back day by day to the low-browed log house, with its patches of Indian corn and other crops, its pleasant sounds of life, the welcome from the children, the approval of father and brother if the day had been successful, and the smiles of the housewife when he displayed the contents of his bag.  It was almost impossible to remember from day to day that peril from the silent, mysterious forest threatened them.  They had lived there for ten years unmolested and at peace; who would care to molest them now?

And yet Humphrey, who knew the forest so well—­its mysterious, interminable depths, its trackless, boundless extent, rolling over hill and valley in endless billows—­he knew well how silently, how suddenly an ambushed foe might approach, spring out from the thick, tangled shelter to do some murderous deed, and in the maze of giant timber be at once swallowed up beyond all danger of pursuit.

In the open plains the Indian raids were terrible enough, but the horrors of uncertainty and ignorance which enveloped the settlers in the forests might well cause the stoutest heart to quail when once it became known that the Indians had become their enemies, and that there was another enemy stirring up the strife, and bribing the fierce and greedy savages to carry desolation and death into the settlements of the English colonists.