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The bullets sung in swarms like bees over his head, but knowing that all would fire at once after the Indian custom, he leaped to his feet, and ran to the shelter of the forest before they could reload and deliver the second volley. "Here's a tree, Henry," said Shif'less Sol; "a lot of officers wanted it, but I've saved it for you." But it was good-natured banter.
Sol seemed so careless and easy that Paul drew an inference from his manner. "You are not expecting anything more from them just now, Sol?" His nod toward the forest indicated the "them." "No, not yet a while," replied Shif'less Sol. "I guess they'll lay by until night." His face showed some apprehension as he spoke of night, but it was gone quickly.
Now and then all except the steersman were forced to bail out the boat, but mostly they kept to cover under their tarpaulin, which was a good one. Shif'less Sol held the good ship "The Galleon," in the middle of the current, and all the time he strained his eyes ahead for floating debris and particularly for the terrible snags which were such a danger in the early Mississippi.
They secured a single room inside the fort, one given to them gladly, because Mary Newton had already spread the fame of their exploits, and, laying aside their hunting shirts and leggins, prepared for rest. "Jim," said Shif'less Sol, pointing to a low piece of furniture, flat and broad, in one corner of the room, "that's a bed.
"You was a littless shif'less, Jefferson. You can't blame people. I wasn't quite sure myself how you'd get along." "No doubt you are right, Uncle Cyrus. It did me good to leave town. I didn't drink, but I had no ambition. When a man goes to a new country it's apt to make a new man of him. That was the case with me." "Are you goin' back again, Jefferson?" "Yes, uncle.
Think of a child like that being made to walk five or six hundred miles through these woods!" "Younger ones still have had to do it," said Shif'less Sol gravely, "an' them that couldn't-well, the tomahawk." The trail was leading them toward the Seneca country, and they had no doubt that the Indians were Senecas, who had been more numerous than any others of the Six Nations at the Wyoming battle.
"Jim," said Shif'less Sol to Long Jim, "there's a spring 'bout twenty miles north o' Wareville that you an' me hev sat by many a time. Thar are hundreds a' springs through that country, yes, thousands o' 'em, but this one is the finest o' 'em all.
"All right, Jim," said Henry, "you deserve both." Long Jim was soon asleep, but Henry remained awake until daylight. He considered whether they should not attempt to escape now, join Shif'less Sol, and follow as fast as they could the main Indian army with the cannon. But he decided in the negative.
"We've got into the habit of thinking of the French as always dark, but many of them are fair. I've heard our school teacher, Mr. Pennypacker, say so often, and he ought to know. For the matter of that, some of the Spaniards are light, too." "Yes, thar's Alvarez," said Shif'less Sol. "He's light, an' that's one reason why I mistrusted him the first time I saw him.
To become tangled in them might be fatal and to scrape against them would be a signal to their enemies, but Paul steered clear every time. They had gone perhaps fifty yards when Henry gave a signal to stop and Jim and Tom rested on their oars. Then they heard a burst of firing behind them, and a smile of saturnine triumph spread slowly but completely over the face of Shif'less Sol.
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