"Where should we get news, who are a hundred miles from anywhere, and cut off from all the rest of mankind?" said Proctor. "I spoke to Honeywood as I came along. He was out on the scout yesterday: he told me he met Dick Ellison and sixteen men. Dick has been one of the Black Rifle's men. Dick told him the Indians had murdered twenty-eight people at Shamakin; that they took their trail, but couldn't overtake 'em, they had so much start." "Then they must have been in strong force. I wonder how many Indians 'twould take to kill twenty-eight men like us?" "'Twould take five hundred, if we had a fort overhead, Proctor; but you can't judge of their numbers by the people killed: most like, there wasn't more'n ten or twelve Indians, and the people they killed were German farmers with some old gun,--the lock too weak to throw the pan open,--or only a pitchfork to defend themselves with, and skeered ter death at that, or else they were fort soldiers, that ain't better'n our children would be, nor half so good, only let 'em have a rest to fire from." "What else did Dick say?" "He said the governor had offered a bounty for sculps. For every Indian man, or boy over ten years old, one hundred fifty dollars; for every squaw, or girl over ten, one hundred thirty dollars; for the sculp of every Indian man, or boy over ten, one hundred thirty dollars; and for every squaw's or girl's sculp, fifty dollars. Dick reckoned there wouldn't be many prisoners taken on that lay." "Of course there wouldn't. What a fool a ranger would be to take an Indian prisoner, have to feed him and watch night and day, run the risk of his getting away, or of being killed by him in the night, and have to carry him perhaps a hundred miles to a government fort to get one hundred fifty dollars, or one hundred thirty if 'twas a woman, when he could get one hundred thirty or fifty for their sculp that are nothing to carry, and could hang fifty on 'em to your belt, and no trouble 'cept to knock 'em on the head, and take the sculp off!" "Honeywood," continued McClure, "thinks, after hearing this news, we ought not to wait to get the harvest, but go into the garrison right off. He says, and it's a fact, that McDonald and his family were all murdered last year, just by staying out one day too long." "Did he say where the Black Rifle was?" asked Armstrong. "At his cave in the mountain: he's going ter stop there quite a while." "Then we sha'n't be troubled with Indians as long as he's round." "Don't be too sure of that: they've found out that it don't pay to come as they used to, in small numbers; and now it's said there are from seventy to a hundred and fifty Indians under one of their chiefs." "There were five hundred French and Indians at the taking of Fort Granville. Such a crowd as that wouldn't pay much attention to the Black Rifle," said Wood.