The Phantom of the River

Boone and Kenton.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. Longing for Night
CHAPTER II. The Cawing of a Crow
CHAPTER III. The Halt in the Woods
CHAPTER IV. On the Edge of the Clearing
CHAPTER V. Daring and Delicate Work
CHAPTER VI. The Right of Eminent Domain
CHAPTER VII. A Question of Ownership
CHAPTER VIII. By the Way
CHAPTER IX. The "Accident"
CHAPTER X. At Rattlesnake Gulch
CHAPTER XI. Watching and Waiting
CHAPTER XII. Carrying the War into Africa
CHAPTER XIII. Unkind Fate
CHAPTER XIV. The Intruder
CHAPTER XV. A Dark Prospect
CHAPTER XVI. Simon Kenton in a Panic
CHAPTER XVII. A Run of Good Fortune
CHAPTER XVIII. "It's an Ill Wind that Blows Nobody any Good"
CHAPTER XIX. A Fellow-Passenger
CHAPTER XX. War's Strategy
CHAPTER XXI. The Phantom of the River
CHAPTER XXII. Putting Out from Shore
CHAPTER XXIII. The Shawanoe Camp
CHAPTER XXIV. The Forlorn Hope
CHAPTER XXV. Face to Face
CHAPTER XXVI. In the Lion's Den
CHAPTER XXVII. The Last Recourse
CHAPTER XXVIII. The Return
CHAPTER XXIX. Squaring Accounts
CHAPTER XXX. Conclusion

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Boone and Kenton.

Jethro in Trouble.

The Phantom boat.

The Missionary's Triumph.

PHANTOM OF THE RIVER.

CHAPTER I.

LONGING FOR NIGHT.

"I think there's trouble ahead, Dan'l."

"There isn't any doubt of it, Simon."

The first remark was made by the famous pioneer ranger, Simon Kenton, and the second fell from the lips of the more famous Daniel Boone.

It was at the close of a warm day in August, more than a century ago, that these veterans of the woods came together for the purpose of consultation. They had threaded their way along parallel lines, separated by hardly a furlong, for a mile from their starting-point, when the above interchange of views took place.

Boone had kept close to the Ohio while stealthily moving eastward, while Kenton took the same course, gliding more deeply among the shadows of the Kentucky forest until, disturbed by the evidence of danger, he trended to the left and met Boone near the river.

The two sat down on a fallen tree, side by side, and, while talking in low tones, did not for a moment forget their surroundings. They had lived too long in the perilous wilderness to forget that there was never a moment when a pioneer was absolutely safe from the fierce or stealthy red man.

"Dan'l," said Kenton, in that low, musical voice which was one of his most marked characteristics, "this 'ere bus'ness has took the qu'arest shape of anything that you or me have been mixed up in."

"I haven't been mixed up in it, Simon," corrected Boone, turning his somewhat narrow, but clean-shaven face upon the other, and smiling gently in a way that brought the wrinkles around a pair of eyes as blue as those of Kenton himself.

"Not yet, but you're powerful sartin to be afore them folks reach the block-house."

Boone nodded his head to signify that he agreed with his friend.

"You wasn't at the block-house, Dan'l, when the flatboat stopped there?"