settlement, where he made his home, he was as watchful and alert as
Daniel Boone or Simon Kenton himself. His penetrating gray eyes not
only scanned the sinuous path, stretching in front, but darted from
side to side, and were frequently turned behind him. He knew that
if danger threatened it was as likely to come from one point as
another.

He could not avoid one conclusion: the peril which had impelled the
young German's horse to such a burst of speed must have been in the
form dreaded above all others--that of the wild Indians who at that
day roamed through the vast wilderness of the West and hovered along
the frontier, eager to use the torch, the rifle, or the tomahawk,
whenever and wherever the way opened.

The probability that such was the cause of the horseman's haste
threw the young Kentuckian at once on his mettle. Inasmuch as he
was putting forth every effort to rejoin his companion, there was
good reason for fearing a collision with the red men. He had been
in several desperate affrays with them, and, like a sensible person,
he spared no exertion to escape all such encounters.

"If they will let me alone I will not disturb them," was the
principle which not only he, but many of the bravest frontiersmen
followed daring the eventful early days of the West.

The youth now dropped into the loping trot of the American Indian--a
gait which, as in the case of the dusky warrior himself, he was able
to maintain hour after hour, without fatigue. The sharp glances
thrown in every direction were not long in making a discovery,
though not of the nature anticipated.