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Their two trees were not far from each other, but their branches did not intermingle. There was a distinct opening between them. The tree up which Lightfoot had scrambled was a great fir towering high above the strong beech in which Ab had found his safety. Branches of the fir hung down until between their ends and Ab's less lofty covert there were but a few yards of space.
The desperation and strength of a wood-wise creature, so bravely combined, alone enabled her to obey Ab's hoarse command. Ab, with his arms outreaching in their strength, feeling the fierce eyes of the hungry bears below boring into his very heart, leaned forward and upward as the swing of the woman reached its climax.
"Right, even if we could manage that; and the survivors would be thrown back, worse off than we are now." "That's a true word, sir." "Well, you know what happened trying the cabin window?" "Yes, sir, I just do," said Tom, dolefully. "I thought Fillot AB's kit was for sale aboard the Naughtylass." "Then the door the hatch; what about that?" "Ah," said Tom, thoughtfully, "what about that?"
But finally he had noted the absence of Ab and had questioned, and then first telling some of his immediate companions that they were to lag and wait for him had started back upon a run to reach the place where he had last seen his friend. It was easy now to arrange wet leaves about Ab's crippling, but little more than temporary, wound.
They were strong men, who knew how to use their weapons well, and they were in numbers almost as two to one. Meanwhile, inside the valley, where the approach and plans of the enemy had been seen and understood, there had gone on swiftly, under Ab's stern direction, such preparation for the fray as seemed most adequate with the means at hand.
The young man bore a great stone-headed club, a dreadful weapon in such hands as his. The men struck furiously and flakes spun from the heavy axes, but Boarface was being slowly driven back when there descended upon Ab's shoulder a blow which swerved him and would certainly have felled a man with less heaped brawn to meet the impact.
He had heard young men tell of great ideas before, of a new and better way of digging pits, or of fishing, or making deadfalls for wild beasts. But he listened and yielded finally to Ab's earnest demand that he should hobble out into the open and see with his own eyes how the strung bow would send the shaft.
Never had Ab been able to persuade Lightfoot's father to use or even try the new weapon, the bow and arrow. He had no tender feeling toward modern innovations. He had a clear eye and strong arm, and the ax and spear were good enough for him! He recognized Ab's great qualities, but there were some things that even a well-regarded son-in-law could not impose upon any elder family male.
Boarface had recognized the futility of scaling, under such conditions, a steep so well defended and had thought of a better way to gain his end and crush Ab and his people. He had heard the story of Ab's first advent into the valley when, chased by the wolves, he leaped through the flame, and there came an inspiration to him!
He was about four years of age. He remembers learning his "A-b ab's," as they were called, and just how the column of letters looked in the old spelling-book; remembers sitting on the floor under the desks and being called out once in a while to say his letters: "Hen Meeker, a boy bigger than I was, stuck on e. I can remember the teacher saying to him; 'And you can't tell that?
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