“Go ahead!—don’t let us keep you,” Farley assented. “Ol’ Tippecanoe’s in a bad box down there at Fort Meigs, an’ the sooner we all git there, the better. How soon do you think the army’ll be ready to move?” “By to-morrow morning, at the latest. I’ll see you again this evening. Then we can talk to our heart’s content.” Douglas hurried from the spot, and Farley and Bright Wing, arising, again sauntered aimlessly about the place, followed by the bloodhound. In the meantime, preparations for the hurried trip down the river were rapidly going on. Officers were stalking hither and thither, giving sharp commands. Hundreds of men were busily engaged in loading the camp equipage, arms, ammunition, and provisions upon flat, open boats that lay moored at the water’s edge. All day the work proceeded without intermission. When one set of men became weary, others took their places. By sunset the boats were loaded—everything on board but the men themselves. That night they slept in their dismantled camp, upon the bare ground. At daylight they manned their clumsy vessels and commenced their venturesome voyage down the Maumee. General Clay had twelve hundred men in his command, and his fleet consisted of eighteen flats of various size. For four days the primitive flotilla moved slowly onward between walls of unbroken forest. The only motive power was the sluggish current, and poles and sweeps in the hands of the sturdy Kentuckians. The weather was warm and sunshiny. Mating birds twittered and chirped in the budding boughs of the trees along the shore, and reviewed their nesting-places of the year before. The clear water lapped musically against the sides of the moving craft; and the militiamen, lolling in the genial sunshine, smoked their pipes and chatted cheerily, unaware of the black fate that awaited them. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVI. Late on the night of the fourth of May, General Clay and his relief expedition arrived at the head of the rapids, a few miles above Fort Meigs. Captain Oliver and a squad of men—among whom were Farley and Bright Wing—slipped ashore and started afoot for the fort. Then—the pilot flatly refusing to proceed farther in the darkness—the commander was compelled to tie up his boats and wait for daylight. Captain Oliver and his men succeeded in eluding the vigilant Indians, and entered the fortification at two o’clock in the morning. The youthful commissary immediately repaired to General Harrison’s quarters, and apprised him of the near approach of the re-enforcements.