AFLOAT ON THE FLOOD
"NOW to land!" cried Sandy, as they turned the head of the canoe toward
shore.
"Less noise, brother," whispered Bob; for the impetuous one was forever
forgetting that a frontiersman must learn that silence is the price of
safety when in the woods where the red man dwells.
"But why do you keep looking up at the sky so much?" went on Sandy.
"Just because it has clouded up, is no sign it will rain. Have we not
heard that all signs fail in dry weather? And, even if that old humbug
of a medicine man pretends he has had it direct from Manitou, I see no
reason for being alarmed. Let it rain if it chooses. We can hunt in wet
clothes as well as in dry."
"Surely," replied Bob, pretending to throw aside his doubts, for he saw
no reason why Sandy should share them; if trouble came they would know
how to meet it.
So they landed in the snug little cove.
"Shall we stake the canoe out here in the rushes?" asked Sandy.
"Not this time," replied Bob. "Take hold, and we will carry it up to
that clump of bushes yonder. It can lie there safe until we come again."
"Oh!" laughed Sandy, "I see you still believe the river will rise
suddenly, and threaten to carry off our only means of getting home!"
"Who knows?" replied the other, quite unmoved by the accusation; "and,
if it did come, we would be very glad that we had taken time by the
forelock. Besides, it is not much further."
Having secreted the boat and both paddles, they concluded to go some
little way back, to camp for the night.
"We must do what Pat says all borderers do when in the enemy's
country--make a very small fire to cook with, and hide that so that not
even the keenest eye could discover it," observed Bob, as they walked
on through the forest, both on the watch for game of any sort.
"Well, it will be highly amusing, at least," admitted Sandy; "though,
unless we are lucky enough to run across game very soon, we shall have
to make our supper off that dried venison; and that I do not like."
"Hist!"
Bob suddenly caught the sleeve of his brother's hunting shirt.
Following the direction in which the other seemed to be looking, Sandy
caught a glimpse of some moving object to leeward.
"A buffalo! Two, _three_ of them! Oh! Bob, what a chance!" he gasped.
The other drew him down instantly, so that the bushes screened them.
"Now let us crawl up as close as we dare. When we get within good
gunshot we will both fire at the same time," he whispered in the ear of
his companion.
Bob, as usual, seemed perfectly calm, while of course the younger boy
was fairly quivering with eagerness. Still, this would not prevent
Sandy from giving a good account of himself when the time came to
shoot, for he always fired off-hand at any rate, rather than by long
sight, as some marksmen do.
It was fortunate that the wind, what little seemed to be stirring
through the forest just then, was coming from the feeding buffalo,
and toward the hunters. This prevented the suspicious animals from
scenting their human enemies.
The boys made fair progress, taking advantage of clumps of bushes,
trunks of trees, and fallen timber.
"Slower," whispered Bob in his brother's ear. "They are getting uneasy.
Notice how often that old bull throws up his head and sniffs the air?
He trots away, only to come back again to his family. Now, again
forward. This log will give us a good boost, I think."
"We don't want the old bull," Sandy managed to say in the other's ear.
"Hardly. He'd be too tough eating. You take the half-grown calf, and
leave the cow to me," said the older hunter; and then made a gesture
that prohibited further communications.
Presently Bob realized that they had crept as close as seemed necessary.
He caught the eye of Sandy, and nodded his head. Knowing what the
programme was to be, for they had gone through it many times together,
the other gradually managed to raise himself to a position where he had
one knee on the ground. This was an ideal position for shooting, as
it gave him a chance to rest his elbow on the other knee, to steady
himself at the final instant.
To Bob it was given to pick the time of firing. He had to watch
closely, in order to make sure that both animals selected were free
from trees, so that they might not uselessly waste precious ammunition.
"Shoot!" he said, quickly.
Bang! roared his own heavily-charged musket. The cow went floundering
down, and never again arose, for Bob's aim had been true.
Sandy was not quite so fortunate. Just at the second when Bob gave the
word to fire, the half-grown young buffalo chanced to step behind a
large tree trunk, so that it was out of the question to dispose of him
while standing still.
With the report the alarmed animals started to run wildly away. But
Sandy had of course been expecting this, and was quick to shoot.
He gave a shout as he saw the prize fall. Bob, on his part, was a
little worried lest the bull charge them; but that old worthy was
already in full flight, doubtless in the belief that the others of his
family would rejoin him, when their little fright, concerning those
lightning flashes and thunder crashes coming from the bushes, had died
away.
Here was great luck truly. All the game they could possibly carry home,
and within carrying distance of the spot where the canoe had been
secreted.
They made camp at once. There was no tent to erect, so when Bob had
removed the two hides, a laborious task even with Sandy's help, and
started to cut the carcasses up, Sandy erected a lean-to of branches,
bark and leaves, that would serve fairly well in case it did rain. Then
came a little fire, built as Bob directed, in a cavity, where its light
would never be seen beyond ten paces.
After that supper was begun. And some of the meat from the young
buffalo bull proved most tender eating.
"Hark!" said Bob, as they were browning their fourth helping at the end
of long wooden splinters thrust into the ground near the little mass of
red embers.
Sandy made an involuntary dive for his gun, as he ejaculated:
"What did you hear? Was it the whoop of an Indian? Have they discovered
us after all?"
"It has begun to rain, that is all," answered Bob, smiling; for he had
heard the first drops beginning to patter among the dead leaves.
"Is that all? Why, it is hardly worth mentioning. And you did give me a
start, to be sure. I'm glad we finished our supper before those clouds
took to leaking."
It seemed a trifling thing just then; but in the end it was freighted
with momentous happenings connected with the fortunes of those two
young pioneers of the Ohio.
Presently the rain was coming down hard, so that the two lads were only
too glad to crawl under the shelter that had been built.
In less than an hour Sandy was bemoaning the fact that he had not,
while he was about it, made the wattled roofing twice as thick, as it
would have shed the rain to better advantage.
That was certainly a night they would not soon forget; and of course it
was Sandy who complained the most, for Bob could take his punishment in
grim silence, Indian fashion.
"When morning comes, we must try to get home!" declared the younger
pioneer, as he crouched there and shivered.
"We are so wet now that nothing could make us feel any worse," declared
Bob. "I am going to try to weave a heavier roof, for the night is
hardly half over."
"A good idea," echoed Sandy.
They set to work; and by the time an hour had gone by, were able to
keep the furious rain from beating in on their guns.
Sleep was entirely out of the question, and they could only sit there
exchanging a few words to cheer one another up, and praying for the
morning to come.
It seemed never to dawn, and Sandy really began to declare that it was
three nights wrapped in one, when his brother called his attention to a
faint gray light in the east.
The rain was still falling in sheets, so that the prospect looked poor
indeed. Again was the voice of Sandy heard, lamenting the fact that in
all likelihood they must go without any breakfast, which, in the eyes
of a growing and always hungry boy, was next door to a crime.
"Perhaps not," said Bob; "just wait until the day has really come, when
we can see around. Surely there must be dead trees somewhere close by;
and you know how dry the heart keeps. We have tinder, and we will have
a fire yet."
That promise sustained Sandy, for he could never remember when Bob
gave his word without keeping it. Nor was it broken in the present
instance. The rain never gave the slightest sign of stopping, although
it must have deluged the headquarters of the great Ohio, and caused the
river to rise many feet an hour. But Bob sallied forth, scorning the
wet, to return presently, staggering under a load of fuel of a resinous
nature, and calculated to burn, despite the storm.
And it did; for soon, when the expert had applied his flint and steel
to the dry tinder, in the midst of which a little powder had been
dropped, the fire started, and in half an hour its genial heat did much
to chase away the blues.
It had been built close enough to their shelter so that the boys could
sit and cook pieces of tender buffalo meat on the end of their reeds.
And for perhaps upward of two hours they amused themselves in this
fashion.
"Now I feel able to carry my share of the game down to the boat, if you
say the word," announced Sandy. "And, as I live, I believe the rain
does not come quite as heavily as before. Let us be on the move!"
Bob was not quite so sure that there would be any break in the storm;
but on the whole he could not hold back. Surely the river would
continue to rise for days after such a cloudburst; and unless they
crossed soon they must stay on the opposite shore a week, perhaps two.
When they reached the bushes where the canoe had been hidden, the craft
was found just as they had left it.
"We had better tie the packages of meat and our guns inside the canoe,"
said long-headed Bob; "for then, if we happen to be upset, they will
not be lost."
"A good idea," replied his brother. "But I hope we are not so unlucky
as to be turned over out there," and he cast an apprehensive look upon
the rushing surface of the flooded Ohio.
Neither of the lads had had any experience in such an emergency; nor
could they be expected to realize the terrible power that current
possessed. It ran smoothly, and without any churning, but, once within
its grip, it would require muscles of steel to guide a boat like the
skin canoe belonging to Blue Jacket.
It was already nearly noon. The sky was leaden, and the rain constantly
falling. Surely the old medicine man of the Shawanees was for once
having his prophecy bountifully fulfilled.
It was with considerable misgivings that Bob, yielding to the
importunities of his impulsive brother, decided to enter the frail
canoe and start to cross that churning flood toward the other shore.
Sandy had artfully mentioned the fact that the little mother would be
anxious about their safety.
"And," he had continued, "we can be heading toward the other bank all
the time, even if the current does carry us downstream at a furious
rate."
They had not gone a quarter of the way across before Bob knew they had
made a big mistake. For the little boat was a mere play-thing in the
grasp of the furious current. They could make progress neither one way
nor the other. All the while they were being swept along with the speed
of a mill-race, held fast in that overpowering grip of the flood!