It was evident that the Wyandots considered pursuit useless or that they feared the Kentucky rifles, as they gathered in a group on the beach and watched the flying boat recede.
"Didn't I tell you it wuzn't wuth while to be serious now, Henry?" said Shif'less Sol. "We're hevin' the easiest kind o' a time an' them warriors standin' thar on the shore look too funny for anything. I wish I could see their faces. I know they would look jest like the faces o' wolves, when somethin' good had slipped from between their teeth."
Paul and Henry were busy reviving Mr. Pennypacker. They threw fresh water from the lake over his face and poured more down his throat. As they worked with him they noted his emaciated figure. He was only a skeleton, and his fainting even in so short a flight was no cause for wonder. Gradually he revived, coughed and sat up.
"I fell," he said. "It was because I was so weak. What has happened? Are we not moving?"
His eyes were yet dim, and he was not more than half conscious.
"You are with us, your friends. You remember?" said Henry. "We rescued you at the place of the stakes, and we all got away unhurt. We are in a boat now sailing over Lake Erie."
"And I saved you a rifle and ammunition," said Paul. "Here they are, ready for you when you land."
Mr. Pennypacker's dim eyes cleared, and he gazed at the two youths in wonder and affection.
"It is a miracle--a miracle!" he said. Then he added, after a moment's pause: "To escape thus after all the terrible things that I have seen!"
Henry shivered a little, and then he asked the fateful questions.
"And what of Wareville, Mr. Pennypacker? Has it been destroyed? Do Paul's people and mine still live? Have they been taken away as captives? Why were you a prisoner?"
The questions came fast, then they stopped suddenly, and he and Paul waited with white faces for the answers.
"Wareville is not destroyed," replied Mr. Pennypacker. "An English officer named Bird, a harelipped man, came with a great force of Indians, some white men and cannon. They easily took Martin's and Ruddle's stations and all the people in them, but they did not go against Wareville and other places. I think they feared the power of the gathering Kentuckians. I was at Martin's Station on a visit to an old friend when I was captured with the others. Bird and his army then retreated North with the prisoners, more than three hundred in number, mostly women and children."