We know that, because we heard them talking from the bushes.
We have a boat in the river; you can reach it in five minutes.

Take your wife and children, and pull for Forty Fort." Standish was bewildered.
"How do I know that you are not enemies, renegades, yourselves ?" he asked.
"If we had been that you'd be a dead man already," said Shif'less Sol.
It was a grim reply, but it was unanswerable, and Standish recognized the fact.

His wife had felt the truth in the tones of the strangers, and was begging him to go.

Their children were crying at visions of the tomahawk and scalping knife now so near.
"We'll go," said Standish.

"At any rate, it can't do any harm.