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Updated: June 29, 2025
"If there are any turkeys within hearing, that is bound to fetch them, but I have seen no signs of them." Linna continued the signalling at intervals for fifteen minutes or more, peeping meanwhile from behind the tree and around her in every direction. Ben did the same, and saw nothing. "Why don't shoot?" she abruptly asked.
"She surely would not say what she does without reason. Linna, teach Ben how to get a wild turkey; we want one for supper, for if we don't have it, we shall all have to go without food." "Me hungry," she ventured; "so be Alice so be you." "You are right. Come, sister, show me how to catch a turkey." She gravely rose from the ground.
"Come, Linna, here is your place beside Alice," said the mother kindly. Again she turned to her father, who was standing by the fire, looking off in the gloom, as if he suspected something wrong. He gave the permission in their native tongue and she cuddled down beside her friend without further waiting. "Mother," said Ben, "you had better lie down with them."
The way, while rough and broken in many places, was not hard, and all, even to the smaller children, were used to being on their feet. There was little fear indeed that Linna would not do her part as well as the older ones. Young as she was in years, she had been trained to hardship from the time she could walk.
Jabez Zitner supposed, when he made known that he intended to take the little Delaware girl with him as a hostage, that though it might be displeasing to the Ripleys, they would not dare object; but he was mistaken. The lad was sitting furthest away on the fallen tree, with his rifle resting across his knees, when he warned the man that if he laid a hand on Linna he would shoot him.
"Why not he make sign?" was the startling question of Linna, pointing at Ben, before the party had gone far after their brief rest. "What do you mean?" asked the puzzled Mrs. Ripley; "he isn't to make any sign to us till he sees or hears something wrong." "People off dere!" replied Linna, pointing ahead and to the right of their course. "Me hear dem speak." It was true.
"She is right," added the mother; "the animals follow it to water; let us do the same." The haunting fear of the red men made the words between the fugitives few, and all their movements guarded. They kept glancing to right and left, in front and to the rear, Linna being probably the most active.
"Come on," called Ben in a low voice, but with a renewal of hope; "we shall get somewhere one of these days." To their surprise, not far from the rocks they came upon a faintly marked path among the trees. "What is the meaning of that?" Ben asked, looking inquiringly at his mother and Linna. "Men don't do dat wild beasts," replied the dusky child.
In the midst of the impressive tableau, Linna suddenly raised her head from the lap of the mother, her action and attitude showing she had caught some sound which she recognized. But everyone else in the party also noted it. It was a shrill, penetrating whistle, ringing among the forest arches a call which she had heard many a time, and she could never mistake its meaning.
They held the prowess of Omas in high respect; but they were not the ones to surrender such a prize as was already theirs. "We will take them back to Wyoming with us," said Red Wolf; "then Omas may do as he thinks best with them." With a shrewdness far beyond her years, Linna said "He wants them to go to the other big river, off yonder" pointing eastward.
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