Mr. Ware, the nominal
leader, taking alarm from the shot and cries, was already disposing his
men in a long, scattering line behind hillocks, tree trunks, brushwood
and every protection that the ground offered.
"Good!" exclaimed Ross, when he saw, "but we must make our line longer
and thinner, we must never let them get around us, an' it's lucky now
we've got steep hills on either side."
To be flanked in Indian battle by superior numbers was the most terrible
thing that could happen to the pioneers, and Mr. Ware stretched out his
line longer and longer, and thinner and thinner. Paul Cotter was full of
excitement; he had been in deadly conflict once before, but his was a
most sensitive temperament, terribly stirred by a foe whom he could yet
neither see nor hear. Almost unconsciously, he placed himself by the
side of Henry Ware, his old partner, to whom he now looked up as a son
of battle and the very personification of forest skill.
"Are they really there, Henry?" he asked. "I see nothing and hear
nothing."
"Yes," replied Henry, "they are in front of us scarcely a rifle shot
away, five to our one.
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