CHAP LEADS THE INDIANS.
It was not long before the Indian who had gone after his two hunting
companions returned with them to the place where Chap and the Indian,
whom we will call “The Talker,” were eating their mid-day meal.
The new-comers were duly introduced to Chap, and expressed their
willingness to take part in the expedition. Each of these men carried a
rifle, and the smaller and more quiet of the two Indians whom Chap had
first met was the only member of the party besides our friend who was
not armed.
Chap would have been very glad while leading this expedition to carry a
weapon of some kind; but as there was no weapon for him, he resolved to
cut a club as soon as he found a suitable limb or sapling.
If he could get a whack at the two fellows who pushed him out of the
boat, he felt that it would do him a great deal of good.
The newly-arrived Indians having made a hasty meal, there was no time
lost in starting. Chap placed himself at the head of the party, but he
had not gone far before he felt obliged to relinquish that position.
The path along which he had come, and which stretched out westwardly
through the forest, was a path worn by persons walking from a
landing-place on the tributary river to the spot on the main stream
where our friends had made their camp of the night before, which was
also a frequently used landing-place.
But the woods now before our party were closely overgrown, and it
required eyes better accustomed to the business than those of Chap’s to
readily find the path.
This passage through the woods was, when the size of the bend of the
tributary river was considered, a short cut between the landing-places
on the two streams; but it was, for all that, a long walk, and it was
late in the afternoon when The Talker announced to Chap that they were
approaching the bank of the other river.
“How do we know that we are going to strike the river at the right
place to meet the rascals?” asked Chap. “They may land on the opposite
bank, and then we can’t get at them.”
“Only one landin’-place ’long here,” said the Indian; “but just where
we are goin’ to go. Ketch ’em there. You see. Just wait.”
The Indians now called a halt, and after a few words among themselves,
The Talker informed Chap that they had determined to remain where they
were until after nightfall, because, if the men on the boat caught
sight of any of them, they would suspect something, and would not land
at all.
“Sit down; rest,” said The Talker. “I’ll go see if boat has come along
yit.”
“I thought it wouldn’t do for you to show yourself,” said Chap, sitting
down on a fallen tree-trunk, while the three Indians sat upon the
ground.
“Ain’t goin’ to look; goin’ to ask,” said The Talker, as he disappeared
into a by-path, which Chap had not noticed before.
In about half an hour The Talker returned, and, much to Chap’s
surprise, he was accompanied by a young white girl, carrying a pail.
“This is Mary Brown,” said The Talker.
The three Indians then arose, and shook hands with Mary Brown, with
whom they seemed to be very well acquainted.
The young girl offered Chap her hand, and said, as she put down her
pail,--
“I’ve brought you some supper; I’d had you come up to the house, but he
tells me,” pointing to The Talker, “that you don’t want to be seen.”
“Do you live in these woods?” asked Chap, in amazement.
“Yes,” said Mary Brown, “we live about half a mile back thar. ’Tain’t
on the river, but it’s on high ground, with a clearin’ ’round it, so
that people can be seen pretty plain from the water. He asked me if I’d
seed a boat come up to-day, but I’m jist certain none has come up yit,
for I’d been sure to see it. I’ve been watchin’ out for father. He’s
gone up Indian River. I don’t ’spect him back to-day, but I might as
well watch.”
The girl took a piece of corn-bread from her pail, and gave it to Chap,
and offered him the first choice of a plate of cold fried bacon. Chap
was obliged to take this food in his fingers, but he was glad enough to
get it, and said nothing about the absence of plates, knives, and forks.
“I’ll bring you down some coffee after a while,” said Mary Brown, “but
I hadn’t made any fire when that Indian came up to the house.”
She gave the rest of the corn-bread and bacon to the Indians, and then
came and sat down by Chap.
“He tells me,” said she, “that some fellows have stole your boat, and
that you’re goin’ to try to take it away from ’em again.”
“That is what we started out to do,” said Chap, “but I’m very much
afraid this plan won’t work. We are not even sure that the men who
stole the boat came up this river, for I did not stay to see which way
they went; and if they did come up this way, why should they land at
the particular place where these Indians expect to find them, and to
which there is a track right through the woods from the place where
they stole the boat?”
“You let these Indians alone,” said the girl, “for knowin’ jist what
people are goin’ to do, ’specially fellers that are huntin’ and
fishin’. I don’t reckon them boat-thieves ever heard thar was a good
campin’-place up here, but they can’t help findin’ it out, for all the
way up from the mouth of the river there’s nothin’ but reeds and swamps
and ’gators; and when they git to the bit of hard, white sand down
thar, which they can see ever so fur away, they’ll be sure to come to
it. Everybody does who goes along this river,--that is, if they come
up this fur. Of course, they may have turned ’round and gone back long
ago, but you’ve got to take your chances of that. As for this track
through the woods, I don’t suppose they know anything about it, and if
they did, they wouldn’t ’spect you to find it. And now I must go up to
the house, and look out for the boat. You and the Indians had better
keep shady till I tell you whether it’s comin’ or not.”
Mary Brown belonged to the class of people which in Florida are called
“crackers.” These are poor whites, generally found in the half-settled
portions of the State, who make a scanty living by fishing, hunting,
and cultivating small patches of ground. They are usually uneducated.
As a rule, they are an orderly people, and many of them are by nature
intelligent and bright.
Mary Brown had been thrown a good deal on her own resources, and she
had learned to take a very common-sense view of the things that came
under her observation. She wore a large sun-bonnet, and no shoes or
stockings, and seemed afraid of nothing in the shape of man or beast
which she might meet in the wild forest that surrounded her solitary
home, where at present she was left with her mother and an old negro
man, who acted as general helper about the place.
When she had gone, the Indians sat talking among themselves, while Chap
folded his arms and stood leaning against a tree.
“I don’t half like the way things are going,” he said to himself. “It
don’t seem to me that I’m exactly commanding this party, although I
regularly hired them, and took them into my service. They’re doing
everything just as they please, and I shouldn’t wonder if the whole
thing should turn out a fizzle. But if we get a chance to do anything,
I’ll soon let them know that I’m captain.”
About fifteen minutes after this, Mary Brown came hurrying to them. She
carried a tin-cup of hot coffee, sweetened, but with no milk in it,
which she gave to Chap.
“There’s a boat comin’ up the river,” she said, “and of course it’s
your’n. Now you fellers lie low, and she’s bound to land on the beach
down thar. I’ll go up on the high ground and keep a lookout,” and away
she ran.
It was growing dark in the woods, but in the cleared space around the
Brown’s cabin it was light enough for the girl to see the boat come up
the river, and steer directly for the sandy beach.
When she returned and told the waiting party that the boat was about
to make a landing, Chap, who had been much excited by the news that
there was a sail in sight, seized the club he had cut in the woods, and
addressed the Indians:
“We must get along now to that landing-place, and the minute the boat
touches the shore, we must make a rush at her and capture her.”
“No, no,” said The Talker; “that won’t do. If they hear us while
they’re in boat, they push off, up sail, and we never see ’em ag’in.
Wait till they come ashore, then we fix ’em. No hurry.”
Chap was obliged to acknowledge that this was good advice, but he
contented himself with the determination that when the decisive moment
came he would not let the Indians do all the fighting.
“We will move quietly down toward the river,” he said, “and then, when
we are sure the boat is tied up, and they are on shore, we’ll make a
rush for them.”
“All right,” said The Talker.
And slowly and cautiously the party, followed at a little distance by
Mary Brown, made its way in the direction of the river.
[Illustration]