This last named tribe had recently harried the remote settlers, and committed depredations on the outskirts of the white settlements eastward.

The company was composed of men who had served in the garrison at Fort Pitt, and hunters and backwoodsmen from Yellow Creek and Fort Henry.

The captain himself was a typical borderman, rough and bluff, hardened by long years of border life, and, like most pioneers, having no more use for an Indian than for a snake.

He had led his party after the marauders, and surprised and slaughtered nearly all of them.

Returning eastward he had passed through Goshocking, where he learned of the muttering storm rising over the Village of Peace, and had come more out of curiosity than hope to avert misfortune.
The advent of so many frontiersmen seemed a godsend to the perplexed and worried missionaries.