Mr.Ware, the nominal leader, taking alarm from the shot and cries, was already disposing his men in a long, scattering line behind hillocks, tree trunks, brushwood and every protection that the ground offered.
"Good!" exclaimed Ross, when he saw, "but we must make our line longer and thinner, we must never let them get around us, an' it's lucky now we've got steep hills on either side." To be flanked in Indian battle by superior numbers was the most terrible thing that could happen to the pioneers, and Mr.Ware stretched out his line longer and longer, and thinner and thinner.

Paul Cotter was full of excitement; he had been in deadly conflict once before, but his was a most sensitive temperament, terribly stirred by a foe whom he could yet neither see nor hear.

Almost unconsciously, he placed himself by the side of Henry Ware, his old partner, to whom he now looked up as a son of battle and the very personification of forest skill.
"Are they really there, Henry ?" he asked.

"I see nothing and hear nothing." "Yes," replied Henry, "they are in front of us scarcely a rifle shot away, five to our one." Paul strained his eyes, but still he could see nothing, only the green waving forest, the patches of undergrowth, the rocks on the steep hills to right and left, and the placid blue sky overhead.

It did not seem possible to him that they were about to enter into a struggle for life and for those dearer than life.
"Don't shoot wild, Paul," said Henry.