“I’m what I look. A poor, helpless man in need of a friend. Why do we halt? I have many hours of energy left in me if there’s a safe bed at the end of the journey.” “You think so but you’d go kerflummox first thing you know. You got to have victuals. We can’t git through tonight anyway. We’ll camp here off the trail and I’ll shoot something and make a soup. With a full stomach and some sound sleep you’ll go through to Massie’s mighty fine.” “If you think best,” sighed Knight. “How far is it to the station?” “Twenty miles,” replied Kinsty. “Bout sixteen miles,” corrected a voice from the bushes. Kinsty exclaimed under his breath and dropped on one knee and cocked his rifle. Knight warned: “It’s all right. It’s a white voice.” “It’s all right after we look him over,” growled Kinsty. “Stranger, whoever you be, show yourself. Both hands up and empty.” A man stepped into the path between the two men, his arms raised, one holding a long Kentucky rifle. He said: “Here I be. Had to fetch the old gun along. Think I was red?” “I knew you was white. But keep your hands up. Knight, lift up his hunting-shirt so we can have a peek at his back.” Knight stared stupidly. The man good-naturedly requested: “Don’t waste time. This gun’s gitting heavy.” Then to Kinsty, “Just what you looking for, mister?” “A red stripe up and down your back, Mister,” growled Kinsty. The stranger laughed and exclaimed: “Beats all natur’ how every one you meet you sort of think may be that skunk Greeby. Go ahead, younker. My name’s Daniels. Been in the bush so long my back ain’t very clean, mebbe. But you’ll find no red stripe.” Knight stepped behind the stranger and pulled up the hunting-shirt. The back was that of a very muscular man. Daniels, without being told, slowly turned around, and Kinsty dropped the butt of his gun to the ground and barked-- “All right. But I don’t take no chances with a strange white man this far down the Ohio, on either the Injun or the Kentucky shore.” Daniels chuckled as if it were a good joke. Then he silently surveyed Knight for a bit and briskly decided: “Feller’s half starved. Been running his legs off. Hide barked and scratched most tarnal. He oughter eat and sleep.” “Just what I was telling him,” agreed Kinsty. “He’s most bodacious to be pushing through to Massie’s Station.” “Safe here for the night as he’d be at Massie’s. What with Greeby and the Girtys and the Shawnees, the station is fair beset.” “If they ain’t strongly forted he shouldn’t go there,” said Kinsty. “They can stand off the Injuns if white renegades don’t lend a hand and play some new deviltry. If Gineral Sinclair ’arned a lesson from Gineral Harmar’s defeat last year we’ll have peace along this river. If he gits a red ax in the head it’ll keep on being death to any one planting corn north of this river. And I’m afraid for Sinclair. Little Turtle and his Miamis are ag’in him as they was ag’in Harmar,” said Daniels.