"It is just the place for us," he said to Jim, as the trapper and some of his comrades gathered about him. "From the forest down below the Indians who are pursuing will be able to get a glimpse of our party after it has climbed over this ridge, for the land rises again, and you can see for yourself that it towers above this place. Now what do you say to this? We send on the best of the horses, with all the women and children, and instruct them to get ahead to that piece of open country to which I am pointing. Meanwhile, we will lie here and prepare a nice little ambush."
"While the women and children draw the varmint into it," cried Jim, with every sign of satisfaction. "Steve, you air 'cute. I 'lowed that many a day ago, but here yer air agin. Boys, that air a plan that's worth workin'."
The spot was, in fact, an ideal one for an ambush, and Steve had had it in his mind's eye the whole of the previous two days, for he was well acquainted with the district. As he had said, this steep rocky ridge cut across the course of the fugitives, running for many miles on either hand. In many places it was almost unclimbable, and at this point it happened to be less severe, so much so that many a colonist making east into the promised land, the valley of the Ohio, had followed the blaze marks of those who had gone before him, and had clambered over the rise where others had found a road. It was the most natural thing, therefore, for this party of fugitives to take the same track, and indeed it was the only course that they could take. The Indians would know this, so Steve argued, and there was little doubt that by now they were within a few miles of the ridge. What would happen when they came up to it?
"They will climb over and wipe the whole lot of us out," our hero had said to himself. "We must stop them here if at all."
Then, as he tramped through the forest on the previous day, he had recollected that in approaching the ridge from the Ohio valley one caught a glimpse every now and again of the track far in advance, for the country to the west rose again, less sharply to be sure, but to a greater elevation. A party making their way over that second rise in the land would be instantly detected by the Indian pursuers, who would imagine that all their pale face enemies were there.