“Deserted ye!” cried the runner, and swore a great oath.  Wasn’t Clark even then on the Ohio raising a great army with authority from the Commonwealth of Virginia to rid them of the red scourge?  And would they desert him?  Or would they be men and bring from Harrodstown the company he asked for?  Then Captain Harrod read the letter asking him to raise the company, and before day had dawned they were ready for the word to march—­ready to leave cabin and clearing, and wife and child, trusting in Clark’s judgment for time and place.  Never were volunteers mustered more quickly than in that cool April night by the gates of Harrodstown Station.

“And we’ll fetch Davy along, for luck,” cried Cowan, catching sight of me beside him.

“Sure we’ll be wanting a dhrummer b’y,” said McCann.

And so they enrolled me.

CHAPTER XII

THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS

“Davy, take care of my Tom,” cried Polly Ann.

I can see her now, standing among the women by the great hewn gateposts, with little Tom in her arms, holding him out to us as we filed by.  And the vision of his little, round face haunted Tom and me for many weary miles of our tramp through the wilderness.  I have often thought since that that march of the volunteer company to join Clark at the Falls of the Ohio was a superb example of confidence in one man, and scarce to be equalled in history.

In less than a week we of Captain Harrod’s little company stood on a forest-clad bank, gazing spellbound at the troubled waters of a mighty river.  That river was the Ohio, and it divided us from the strange north country whence the savages came.  From below, the angry voice of the Great Falls cried out to us unceasingly.  Smoke rose through the tree-tops of the island opposite, and through the new gaps of its forest cabins could be seen.  And presently, at a signal from us, a big flatboat left its shore, swung out and circled on the polished current, and grounded at length in the mud below us.  A dozen tall boatmen, buckskin-clad, dropped the big oars and leaped out on the bank with a yell of greeting.  At the head of them was a man of huge frame, and long, light hair falling down over the collar of his hunting shirt.  He wrung Captain Harrod’s hand.

“That there’s Simon Kenton, Davy,” said Cowan, as we stood watching them.

I ran forward for a better look at the backwoods Hercules, the tales of whose prowess had helped to while away many a winter’s night in Harrodstown Station.  Big-featured and stern, yet he had the kindly eye of the most indomitable of frontier fighters, and I doubted not the truth of what was said of him—­that he could kill any redskin hand-to-hand.

“Clark’s thar,” he was saying to Captain Harrod.  “God knows what his pluck is.  He ain’t said a word.”

“He doesn’t say whar he’s going?” said Harrod.