CHAPTER XXV

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!