Part 5 (1/2)

A Mysterious Shot in the Darkness.

”I am going to keep my eyes open for that cut-throat that was under the bed. There's no telling what he might not do,” said John with quiet determination, to Ree, when the peddler had left them and they were fairly under way for the journey of another day.

”I have thought of that,” Ree answered, ”and you see I have put the rifles where they will be handy. There is no use of carrying them, I guess, but the time is coming when they must always be within reach.”

The peddler had accompanied the boys to a cross-roads a couple of miles from the Eagle tavern, enlivening them with many odd tales of his experiences. Now they were alone again, and as the country through which they pa.s.sed became rougher and wilder, the lads realized more fully than ever that theirs was a serious undertaking.

Yet they were happy. The trees were putting on bright colors; the air was fragrant with the odor of autumn vegetation. The water in every stream they crossed was fresh and clear, and fall rains had made green the woodland clearings. Quail called musically from time to time, and once the ”Kee-kee-keow-kee-kee” of a wild turkey was heard.

At noon, beside a das.h.i.+ng brook which tumbled itself over a stony bed as though in glee with its own noisiness, the travelers halted. They unhitched Jerry that he might graze, and kindled a fire to boil some eggs. These with brown bread, a generous supply of which Mrs. Catesby had given them, and ginger cake which Mary Catesby had announced she had made with her own hands, made a meal which anyone might have relished. To the boys, their appet.i.tes sharpened by the fine air, every morsel they put between their lips seemed delicious.

”We won't long have such fare,” they reminded one another.

”We will have venison three times a day though,” said John.

”Yes, we will have so much meat we will be good and tired of it; because we must be saving of our meal this winter, and until our own corn grows,”

Ree answered thoughtfully.

”Well, don't be so melancholy about it, Old Sobersides,” cried John.

”Why, for my part, I could just yell for the joy of it when I think how snug we will be in our cabin this winter! And what a fine time we are going to have choosing a location and building our log house!”

”That, as I have so often said,” Ree answered, ”is the one thing about our whole venture that I do not like. We will be 'squatters.' We won't own the land we settle upon except that we shall have bought it of the Indians; and that is a deed which the government will not recognize. But we will have to take our chances of making our t.i.tle good when the time comes, though we may have to pay a second time to the men or company, or whoever secures from the government the territory where we shall be. Or we might settle near enough to General Putnam's colony to be able to buy land of them. We must wait and see what is best to do.”

”Ree,” said John, earnestly, ”I know you are right; you always are. But I don't like to think of those things--only of the hunting and trapping and fixing up our place, and eating wild turkey and other good things before our big fire-place in winter--and all that. You see we will have to sort of balance each other. You furnish the brains, and I'll do the work.”

”Oh that sounds grand, but--” Ree laughed and left the sentence unfinished.

When, by the sun, their only time-piece, the boys judged they had been an hour and a half in camp, they resumed their journey. They had secured so early a start that morning, that they had no doubt they would reach the Three Corners, the next stopping-place designated on Captain Bowen's map, before night; and indeed it lacked a half hour of sundown when they drove up to the homely but pleasant tavern at that point. It was so different a place from the Eagle tavern that the boys had no fear when they went to bed, that the unpleasant experience of the night before would be repeated.

Several days followed unmarked by any special incident, except that the lads were delayed and a part of their goods badly shaken up by their cart upsetting into a little gully. Fortunately, however, little damage was done.

At the end of two weeks so thinly settled a country had been reached that nearly every night was spent in camp. Yet these were not disagreeable nor was there much danger. Only one man who answered the general description of a ”cut-throat” had been seen, and he seemed inclined to make little trouble. He rode out on a jet black horse from a barn, near which a house had at one time stood, its site still marked by charred logs and a chimney. Perhaps it had been burned in the war-time; at any rate the place had a forsaken, disagreeable appearance, and the rough-looking stranger emerging suddenly from the barn, put the young emigrants on their guard at once.

For two hours the man rode in company with the boys, and finding out who they were, proposed to spend the night with them. Ree would have permitted it, but by his actions John so plainly gave the fellow to understand what he thought of him, that the stranger at last rode back in the direction he had come, cursing John for the opinions which the latter had expressed. The boys slept with ”one eye open” that night.

Daily the road became worse and worse. For great distances it was bordered on both sides by forests and the country was rough and broken.

There were wild animals and, undoubtedly, Indians not far away, but the settlements were yet too near for the young travelers to have much fear.

So when their camp fire had burned low in the evening, they piled on large sticks of wood, put their feet to the blaze, and, wrapped in their blankets, slept splendidly. One night when it rained--and the water came down in torrents--they made their bed inside the cart; but if the weather was pleasant they preferred to be beside the glowing coals.

An adventure which had an important bearing on the future, befell the boys early in the fourth week of their travels. They had resolved to be saving of their ammunition, and wasted no powder in killing game for which they had no use, though they twice saw wild turkeys and once a bear, as they left civilization farther and farther behind. But when provisions from home began to run low, it happened, as so often it does, that when they felt the need of game to replenish their larder they chanced upon scarcely any.

”One of us must go through the woods, keeping in line with the road, and shoot something or other this afternoon,” said Ree, at dinner one day.

”The other will not be far away when he returns to the road again.”

”Which?” John smiled.

”I don't care. You go this time and I will try my luck another day,” Ree answered. ”Get a couple of turkeys, if you can, old boy; or, if you can get a deer, the weather is cool and the meat will keep.”