The colonel smiled grimly.

"Every summer during fifteen years has been a bloody one on the
border. The sieges of Fort Henry, and Crawford's defeat, the biggest
things we ever knew out here, are matters of history; of course you
are familiar with them. But the numberless Indian forays and attacks,
the women who have been carried into captivity by renegades, the
murdered farmers, in fact, ceaseless war never long directed at any
point, but carried on the entire length of the river, are matters
known only to the pioneers. Within five miles of Fort Henry I can show
you where the laurel bushes grow three feet high over the ashes of two
settlements, and many a clearing where some unfortunate pioneer had
staked his claim and thrown up a log cabin, only to die fighting for
his wife and children. Between here and Fort Pitt there is only one
settlement, Yellow Creek, and most of its inhabitants are survivors of
abandoned villages farther up the river. Last summer we had the
Moravian Massacre, the blackest, most inhuman deed ever committed.
Since then Simon Girty and his bloody redskins have lain low."

"You must always have had a big force," said Sheppard.

"We've managed always to be strong enough, though there never were a
large number of men here. During the last siege I had only forty in
the fort, counting men, women and boys. But I had pioneers and women
who could handle a rifle, and the best bordermen on the frontier."

"Do you make a distinction between pioneers and bordermen?" asked
Sheppard.