Dayton was alive with the war fever. Governor Hull, of Michigan, who had been appointed a brigadier general, had started north from there nearly a month before with thirty-five hundred volunteers and regulars and was now one hundred miles to the north, cutting his way laboriously through the vast forest of the Black Swamp. At last reports he had reached Blanchard River, and had built a fort which he called Fort Findlay. So far as Ohio knew war had not yet been declared, but news that it had been was expected daily. The whole state awaited it in apprehension, not from fear of the British, but from terror of their ruthless red allies. Not a man or woman in all Ohio but knew what Indian warfare meant. Not one but could remember the silent midnight attack on the sleeping farmhouse, the blazing rooftree, the stark, gashed forms that had once been men and women and little children, the wiping out of the labor of years in a single hour. Every sight and sound of forest and of prairie mimicked the clash. The hammering of the woodpecker was the pattering of bullets, the thump of the beaver was the thud of the tomahawk, the scream of the fishhawk the shriek of dying women, the scolding of the chipmunks in the long grass the chatter of the squaws around the torture post, the red reflection of the setting sun the gleam of blazing rooftrees. Ah! Yes! Ohio knew what Indian war meant. And Cato, for the first time, realized whither he was going. He ceased to talk of his sweethearts and began to pray for his soul. At last Jack came to Piqua. Piqua stood close to the boundary of the Indian country, which then spread over the whole northwestern quarter of Ohio. North of it lay the great Black Swamp, through which roved thousands of Indians, nominally peaceful, but potentially dangerous. At Piqua, too, dwelt Colonel John Johnson, the United States Indian agent, whose business it was to keep them quiet. As Jack rode into the outskirts of the tiny scattered village, a middle-aged man with long, gray whiskers, skull cap, and buckskin trousers came up to him. “Hello, stranger!” he bawled. “What’s the news?” Jack reined in. “Sorry, but I haven’t any,” he replied. “Whar you from?” “From Dayton and the south.” “Sho! Ain’t Congress declared war yet?” “Not that I know of. The last news from Washington was that they were still debating.” “Debatin’? Well! I just reckon they are debatin’. Lord sakes, stranger, don’t it make you sick and tired to hear a lot of full grown men a-talkin’ and a-talkin’ like a pack of women. Just say what you got to say and stop; that’s my motto. And here’s Congress a-talkin’ and a-talkin’ and a-wastin’ time while the Injuns are fillin’ up with fire-water and sharpenin’ their tomahawks and the country’s going to the devil. Strike first, and talk afterwards, say I. But then I never was much of one to talk. I guess livin’ in the woods makes you kinder silent, and----”