Part 10 (2/2)
poetry. I ain't told you about it, but when I wuz a young boy, afore I moved with the settlers, I wuz up in these parts an' I learned to talk Iroquois a heap. I never thought it would be the use to me it hez been now. Ain't it funny that sometimes when you put a thing away an' it gits all covered with rust and mold, the time comes when that same forgot little thing is the most vallyble article in the world to you.”
”Weren't you scared, Sol,” persisted Paul, ”to face a man like Brant, an' pa.s.s yourself off as an Onondaga?”
”No, I wuzn't,” replied the s.h.i.+ftless one thoughtfully, ”I've been wuss scared over little things. I guess that when your life depends on jest a motion o' your hand or the turnin' o' a word, Natur' somehow comes to your help an' holds you up. I didn't get good an' skeered till it wuz all over, an' then I had one fit right after another.”
”I've been skeered fur a week without stoppin',” said Tom Ross; ”jest beginnin' to git over it. I tell you, Henry, it wuz pow'ful lucky fur us you found them steppin' stones, an' this solid little place in the middle uv all that black mud.”
”Makes me think uv the time we spent the winter on that island in the lake,” said Long Jim. ”That waz sh.o.r.ely a nice place an' pow'ful comf'table we wuz thar. But we're a long way from it now. That island uv ours must be seven or eight hundred miles from here, an' I reckon it's nigh to fifteen hundred to New Orleans, whar we wuz once.”
”Shet up,” said Tom Ross suddenly. ”Time fur all uv you to go to sleep, an' I'm goin' to watch.”
”I'll watch,” said Henry.
”I'm the oldest, an' I'm goin' to have my way this time,” said Tom.
”Needn't quarrel with me about it,” said s.h.i.+f'less Sol. ”A lazy man like me is always willin' to go to sleep. You kin hev my watch, Tom, every night fur the next five years.”
He ranged himself against the wall, and in three minutes was sound asleep. Henry and Paul found room in the line, and they, too, soon slept. Tom sat at the door, one of the captured rifles across his knees, and watched the forest and the swamp. He saw the last flare of the distant lightning, and he listened to the falling of the rain drops until they vanished with the vanis.h.i.+ng wind, leaving the forest still and without noise.
Tom was several years older than any of the others, and, although powerful in action, he was singularly chary of speech. Henry was the leader, but somehow Tom looked upon himself as a watcher over the other four, a sort of elder brother. As the moon came out a little in the wake of the retreating clouds, he regarded them affectionately.
”One, two, three, four, five,” he murmured to himself. ”We're all here, an' Henry come fur us. That is sh.o.r.ely the greatest boy the world hez ever seed. Them fellers Alexander an' Hannibal that Paul talks about couldn't hev been knee high to Henry. Besides, ef them old Greeks an'
Romans hed hed to fight Wyandots an' Shawnees an' Iroquois ez we've done, whar'd they hev been?”
Tom Ross uttered a contemptuous little sniff, and on the edge of that sniff Alexander and Hannibal were wafted into oblivion. Then he went outside and walked about the islet, appreciating for the tenth time what a wonderful little refuge it was. He was about to return to the hut when he saw a dozen dark blots along the high bough of a tree. He knew them.
They were welcome blots. They were wild turkeys that had found what had seemed to be a secure roosting place in the swamp.
Tom knew that the meat of the little bear was nearly exhausted, and here was more food come to their hand. ”We're five pow'ful feeders, an' we'll need you,” he murmured, looking up at the turkeys, ”but you kin rest thar till nearly mornin'.”
He knew that the turkeys would not stir, and he went back to the hut to resume his watch. Just before the first dawn he awoke Henry.
”Henry,” he said, ”a lot uv foolish wild turkeys hev gone to rest on the limb of a tree not twenty yards from this grand manshun uv ourn. 'Pears to me that wild turkeys wuz made fur hungry fellers like us to eat. Kin we risk a shot or two at 'em, or is it too dangerous?”
”I think we can risk the shots,” said Henry, rising and taking his rifle. ”We're bound to risk something, and it's not likely that Indians are anywhere near.”
They slipped from the cabin, leaving the other three still sound asleep, and stepped noiselessly among the trees. The first pale gray bar that heralded the dawn was just showing in the cast.
”Thar they are,” said Tom Ross, pointing at the dozen dark blots on the high bough.
”We'll take good aim, and when I say 'fire!' we'll both pull trigger,”
said Henry.
He picked out a huge bird near the end of the line, but he noticed when he drew the bead that a second turkey just behind the first was directly in his line of fire. The fact aroused his ambition to kill both with one bullet. It was not a mere desire to slaughter or to display marksmans.h.i.+p, but they needed the extra turkey for food.
”Are you ready, Tom?” he asked. ”Then fire.”
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