About midnight
The flashes of electricity dazzled them and continued without a break for almost an hour . The roar of the thunder was like the unbroken discharges of great batteries , but both wind and rain were light . Several times the lightning struck with a tremendous crash in the woods about them , but the boat glided on untouched . About midnight they came out into the flood of the Ohio , and , setting their sail , they steered down the center of the stream . All of them felt great relief , now that they were on the wide Ohio . On the narrower tributary they might have been fired upon from either shore , but the Ohio was a half mile and sometimes a full mile from bank to bank . As long as they kept in the middle of the stream they were practically safe from the bullets of ambushed Indians .