Like Noah and family of old, we managed to embark on this ancient ark,
and paddled to the further shore.

There we miraculously escaped the scalping knife and tomahawk. While
painfully making our way through the primeval forest, we were suddenly
saluted by the ferocious war-whoop, and a dozen Indians barred our
way, flourishing their primitive implements of warfare. A shot from
father's double-barreled gun sent them flying to cover, our steeds
rushed forward with a speed hitherto unknown, the prairie schooner
rocked like a boat in a cyclone, the mother shrieked, the _enfant
terrible_ howled like a bull of Bashan, and just as the "Red devils"
were closing in from the rear, the mouth of a cave loomed up in the
hillside into which dashed "pegasus and mooly cow" pell-mell.

Our red admirers halted almost at the muzzle of the gun and the blades
of my brothers' axes. Luckily the Indians had neither firearms nor
bows and arrows. They made rushes occasionally, but the shotgun
wounded several, the axes intimidated, and they seemed about to settle
down to a siege when, with a tremendous shouting and singing of
"Tippecanoe and Tyler too," a band of picturesquely arrayed white men
came marching along the trail. The enemy took to their heels, and we
learned that our rescuers had been to a William Henry Harrison parade
and barbecue, for this was the time of the famous "hard cider"
campaign.

The Indians had been there too and, filling up with "fire water,"
their former war-path proclivities had returned to their "empty,
swept, and garnished" minds, to the extent that they yearned to
decorate their belts with our scalps.