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They belonged to the camp-fire, which formed a centre to the party composed of Dan and Peter, Fergus, Dechamp, and Fred Jenkins the sailor. The latter, who it was thought had come out to the country by way of a skylark rather than as a settler, had followed the hunters, bent, he said, on firing a broadside into a buffalo.
"I don't care much about your errand. You will get me into hot water with Thorbeorn. Don't I tell you that he is a great man, an old settler and what-not? He knows his forefathers back to Baldur the Beautiful." "You are telling me what I know already," said Einar, who was rather red, and showed a frown. "My own birth is no such thing. My father was a freedman. Well, I couldn't help that."
Such was the fate of a settler who had built his cabin on the Wyoming hills, near Davenport. While working in his fields an arrow, shot from a covert, laid him low, and his scalp was cut away to adorn the belt of a savage.
My father believed that he knew the way to the house of an old settler, at the western foot of the mountains, who had treated him kindly some years before, and with whom he meant to leave me until he had made arrangements elsewhere. If we had only gone straightway thither, night-fall would have found us safe beneath that hospitable roof.
It was near eleven o'clock when the party set off, and, after crossing Rose-Hill creek, they went to the northward, as Governor Phillip wished to see if, after so long a drought, there was any water in a ravine near to which he intended to place a settler, the ground being good, lying well for cultivation, and having plenty of water where the farm-house was intended to be fixed.
Upon his arrival in New South Wales, he was assigned to a settler in the interior, a notoriously hard and severe man, who gave him but a scanty supply of food and clothing, and whose aim seemed to be to take the utmost out of him at the least possible expense.
Early that same evening a six-foot father strolled over to the place of the nearest settler, a mile or so away, and the two men walked back, talking together as neighbors will in a new country, though they do not so well in cities, and when they reached the creek one of them, the father, cut a forked twig and lifted the black-snake to its full length.
This was a settler; and showed them that they had knowing ones to deal with. Of course their original shyness arose from fear lest we might rob them. When a bargain was struck they became quite friendly, and brought us out some oil, barley-cakes, and boiled eggs all the luxuries of the oasis!
While I was yet gazing in mute amazement after Louis Laplante, wondering whether his strange emotion were revenge, or remorse, the women and children marched forth with the men protecting each side. The empty threats of half-breeds to butcher every settler in Red River had evidently reached the ears of the women.
When all hope had gone of saving the unfortunate people, a settler, somewhat advanced in life, appeared on horseback on the shore. His horse was a bold and strong animal, and noted for excelling as a swimmer. The farmer, moved with compassion for the unfortunate seamen, resolved to attempt saving them. Fixing himself firmly in the saddle, he pushed into the midst of the breakers.
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