Until that moment I had never dreamed of the exquisite torture that the threat of an Indian raid could induce. I secured my weapons and mounted without realizing what I was doing. My first coherent thought was one of amazement to behold Cousin stuffing smoked meat into his pack with one hand while the other held a tough morsel for his teeth to tear at. He ate like a famished wolf. "Can't fight without some linin'," he mumbled. "An' we'll take what's left along. May git in a corner an' have mighty little time for cookin'." I urged my horse into a gallop. Cousin tore after me, angrily calling on me to wait. I was in no mood to wait, and endeavored to get even more speed out of my animal. Then Cousin brought me to my senses by yelling: "All right! Kill 'em if you want to!" I pulled in and he drove alongside, crying: "First thing you know you'll be runnin' into a nest o' them devils. Their path and our path draws together an' enters the valley as one path." "But we must reach the valley ahead of them!" "Can't be did," he discouraged. "Best we can do is to sneak up on 'em without bein' seen." As a last hope I suggested: "Perhaps after all they know nothing about the Dales." "They know 'bout Abb's Valley. It's Black Hoof's band. Made off north, then swung back down here, keepin' clear o' Howard's Creek. If they clean out Abb's Valley they'll clean out the creek on their way home." Scant consolation in all this. It was a great relief to reach the Bluestone and prepare for action. We spanceled our horses in a tiny opening well surrounded by woods. Cousin was familiar with the country and led the way. Instead of making for the mouth of the narrow valley we gained the end of one of its enclosing ridges and scouted along the slope. When we halted and Cousin carefully parted the bushes I observed we were behind three cabins and high enough up the slope to see over them. The valley at this point was not more than fifty rods wide, and appeared to be even less because of the long walls stretching away for ten miles. Some children were laughing at their play and were hidden from view as long as they kept close to the door of the middle cabin. A dog was growling and barking, but as he did not join the sport of the little ones we concluded he was tied. One of the red cabins, that nearest to the mouth of the valley, did not appear to be occupied. Through the small window of the cabin farthest up the valley I glimpsed two persons moving about when they passed between the window and the open door. A few rods farther out toward the middle of the valley and nearer the Bluestone than the unoccupied cabin, were the four walls of what had been intended for a fort. It lacked the roof. For some reason the men had suspended work on it, being too few to complete it, or else deciding the cabins furnished sufficient protection.