The sharp rattling of a drum frantically beaten rolled through the little hamlet. The silent, pine-clad hills rising above the clearing on the bank sent the echoes clattering back over the river. Scarcely had the peacefulness of the evening been broken by the first note of the clamor when from every door of hut or cabin the excited people poured out into the clearing and ran toward the stockade. First came half-grown boys and girls, yelling half in terror, half in sport; then frightened mothers clasping crying babies to their troubled breasts with one hand, and with the other dragging stumbling little children. Then the men of the settlement, coatless, hatless, clad as they were in the various occupations in which they had been engaged at the moment, brought up the rear. Some of the men endeavored to drive a few bewildered cattle; others helped to bring the younger children; but, whatever his action, each one carried a long, deadly rifle, as with grim, set faces they hurried toward the open gate of the fort on the shore. A panting horse stood by the gate, his drooping head giving evidence of the exhaustion following a desperate ride. Inside the fort a young man, dressed in the usual fringed hunting-shirt and leggings, eternal garment of the Western pioneer, leaned upon his tall rifle and with eager gestures poured out the details of that message which had started the rolling of the drum. The Indians were out,--the fierce Wyandotte, the bloody Mingo, the ruthless Shawnee. A huge war-party accompanying a band of British rangers from Detroit had been discovered in the woods early that September morning in 1777. They were marching toward Fort Patrick Henry on the banks of the Ohio, a rude white-oak stockade some sixteen feet high, extending along the river where now the mighty furnaces of Wheeling toss smoke and flame high into the air. The Indians were yet some distance away; but the messenger, young Hugh McCullough, the bravest, most daring, most gallant young man among the thirty families clustered about the fort, and the one surest to hit his mark with the rifle, could not tell how soon they might be there. But they might appear at any moment; and Colonel Sheppard, the commander, deemed it best to bring all of the settlement people into the fort at once. Hence the sudden alarm and call to arms. Presently the little enclosure was filled with crying children, boastful boys, frightened girls, serious women, and thoughtful men. The gates were shut; the younger children, under the care of the older women, sent to the safest room in the four corner block-houses, while the matrons set about preparing food, moulding bullets, making cartridges, and lending to the contemplated defence such other assistance as they could. The men and youths fell in with their respective companies and repaired immediately to their several stations, long practice and frequent alarms having made them familiar with the duties expected of them.