The Forest Runners: A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky by Altsheler (books for 20 year olds .TXT) 📗

of their hut, a rude oven or furnace, with an exterior vent. They had plastered the stones together with mud, which hardened into a sort of cement, and in this furnace they kindled a little fire. They did not dare to make it large, because of the smoke, but they had enough coals to give out a warm and pleasant glow.

All of them retreated for a while to the "mansion," as Paul rather proudly called it, and Henry. Ross, and Shif'less Sol busied themselves with making new and stout moccasins of deerskin, fastened with sinews and lined with fur. Shif'less Sol was especially skillful at this work; in fact, the shiftless one was a wonderfully handy man at any sort of task, and with only his hunting knife, a wooden needle of his own manufacture, and deer sinews, he actually made Paul a fur-lined hunting shirt, which seemed to the boy's imaginative fancy about the finest garment ever worn in the wilderness. All of them also put fur flaps on their raccoon-skin caps, and Shif'less Sol even managed to fashion an imitation of gloves out of deerskin.

"I wouldn't advise you to try to use your hands much with these gloves on," he said; "leastways, not to shoot at anything till you took 'em off; but I do say that so long ez your hands are idle, they'll be pow'ful warmin' to the fingers."

"We don't have to go out very much just now," said Paul, "and if we only had two or three books here, we could pass the time very pleasantly."

"That's so," said Shif'less Sol musingly. "You an' me, Paul, wuz intended to be eddicated men. Ez fur Jim Hart here, he's that dull he'd take more pride in cookin' in a stone furnace than in writin' the finest book in the world."

"When I cook I git's somethin' that I kin see," said Jim Hart. "I never read but one book in my life, an' I didn't find it very sustainin'. I guess if you wuz starvin' to death here in the wilderness, you'd ruther hev a hot hoe cake than all the books in the world."

"'Tain't worth while, Paul, to talk to Jim Hart," said Shif'less Sol sadly. "He ain't got no soul above a hoe cake. I've allus told you, Paul, that you an' me wuz superior to our surroundings. Ef Jim Hart wuz locked up in a schoolhouse all his life he'd never be an eddicated man, while ez fur me, I'm one without ever gittin' a chance, jest because it's in my natur'."

Paul laughed at them both, and drew a little closer to the bed of red coals. The warmth within and the cold without appealed to all the elements of his vivid and imaginative nature. Not for worlds would he have missed being on this great adventure with these daring men.

"I'm a-thinkin'," said Ross, as he lifted the buffalo robe over their door and looked out, "that ez soon ez the wind dies the lake will freeze over."

"An' it will be harder than ever then," said Paul, "to catch fish."

"I guess we kin do about ez well through holes in the ice," said Ross.

Ross's prediction soon came true. When they awoke on the morning two days afterwards the lake curved about them in a white and glittering sheet, reflecting back a brilliant sun in a million dazzling rays.

"I'm glad all of our party are here on the island together," said Henry, "because the ice isn't thick enough to support a man's weight, and it isn't thin enough to let a canoe be pushed through it. We're clean cut off from the world for a little while."

"An' this is whar poor old Long Jim becomes the most vallyble uv us all," said Jim Hart. "It's a lucky thing that I've got a kind uv stove an' buffalo meat an' venison an' other kinds uv game. I'm jest willin' to bet that you four hulkin' fellers will want to lay aroun' an' eat all the time."

"I wouldn't be surprised, Jim, if we didn't get hungry once in a while," said Henry, with a smile.

Two more days passed, and the ice on the lake neither melted nor grew thicker, and they were as well shut in and others were as well shut out as if they had been on a lone island in the Pacific Ocean. Once they saw a thin column of smoke, only a faint blue spire very far away, which Henry said rose from an Indian camp fire.

"It's several miles from here," he said, "and it's just chance that they are there. They don't dream that we are here."

Nevertheless, they did not light the fire in their furnace again for two days. Then, when the skies grew too dark and somber for a faint smoke to show against its background, they kindled it up again, and once more enjoyed warm food.

"Ef I jest had a little coffee, an' somethin' to b'il it in, I'd be pow'ful happy," said Jim Hart. "I'd jest enjoy b'ilin' a gallon or two apiece fur you fellers an' me."

"Wa'al, ez you ain't got any coffee an' you ain't got anythin' to b'il it in, I reckon we'll hev to be jest ez happy without it," said Shif'less Sol.

The night after this conversation Paul was awakened by a patter upon their skin and thatch roof. It must have been two or three o'clock in the morning, and he had been sleeping very comfortably. He lay on furs, and the soft side of a buffalo robe was wrapped close about him. He could not remember any time in his life when he felt snugger, and he wanted to go back to sleep, but that patter upon the roof was insistent. He raised himself up a little, and he heard along with the patter the breathing of his four comrades. But it was pitch dark in the hut, and, rolling over to the doorway, he pulled aside a few inches the stout buffalo hide that covered it. Something hard and white struck him in the face and stung like shot.

It was hailing, pouring hard and driven fiercely by the wind. Moreover, it was bitterly cold, and Paul quickly shut down the buffalo flap, fastening it tightly. "We're snowed in and hailed in, too," he murmured to himself. Then he drew his buffalo robe around his body more closely than ever, and went back to sleep. The next morning it rained on top of the hail for about an hour, but after that it quickly froze again, the air turning intensely cold. Then Paul beheld the whole world sheathed in glittering ice. The sight was so dazzling that his eyes were almost blinded, but it was wonderfully beautiful, too. The frozen surface of the lake threw back the light in myriads of golden sheaves, and every tree, down to the last twig, gleamed in a silvery polished sheath.

"It 'pears to me," said Shif'less Sol lazily, "that we ain't on an islan' no longer. The Superior Powers hev built a drawbridge, on which anything can pass."

"That's so," said Paul. "The ice must be thick enough now to bear a war party."

"Ef that war party didn't slip up an' break its neck," said Shif less Sol. "All that meltin' stuff froze hard, an' it's like glass now. Jest you try it, Paul."

Paul went out in the hollow, and at his very first step his feet flew from under him and he landed on his back. Everywhere it was the same way—ice like glass, that no one could tread on and yet feel secure.

"We have our drawbridge," said Paul, "but it doesn't seem to me to be very safe walking on it."

Nevertheless, Henry and Ross slipped away two nights later, and were gone all the next day and another night. When they returned they reported that the Miami village was pretty well snowed up, and that the hunters even were not out. Braxton Wyatt was still there, and they believed he would soon be up to some sort of mischief—it was impossible for him to remain quiet and behave himself very long.

"Meanwhile what are we to do?" asked Paul.

"Just stay quiet," said Henry. "We'll wait for Braxton and his savages to act first."

But the ice did not remain long, all melting away as the fickle northwestern weather turned comparatively warm again, and the five once more began to move about freely.

CHAPTER XV

WORK AND PLAY

Henry and Ross were gone to the mainland, and Paul, Shif'less Sol, and Jim Hart were left on the island. Shif'less Sol stood at the edge of the hollow, hands on hips, admiring the hut.

"Paul," he said, "I think that thar house is jest about the finest I ever built."

"You built!" exclaimed Jim Hart indignantly. "Mighty little you had to do with it, Sol Hyde, but eat in it an' sleep in it, which two things you are willin' enough to do any time! It's me an' Paul who have reared that gran' structure."

"It appeals to my instincts as an eddicated man," went on Sol, calmly disregarding Jim. "We've got up the house without sp'ilin' the surroundin's. It jest blends with rock an' bush, an' we've helped natur' without tryin' to improve it."

"I believe you've got the truth of it, Sol," said Paul. "I'm getting fond of this place. How long do you think we'll stay here, Sol?"

Shif'less Sol cocked up his weather eye, and a look of surpassing wisdom came over his face.

"When the ground hog come out o' his hole in the fall an' saw his shadder, he went right back ag'in," he replied, "an' that means a hard winter. Besides, we're pretty far north, an' all the hunters say they have lot o' snow hereabouts. We're goin' to have cold an' snow right along. That's the opinion o' me, Solomon Hyde. Jim Hart may say somethin' else, but he ain't worth listenin' to."

"I said this mornin' that it wuz goin' to be a hard winter," growled Jim Hart. "You heard me sayin' so, an' that's the reason you're sayin' so now."

"Oh, Jim, Jim! Whatever will become o' you?" exclaimed Shif'less Sol sadly. "An' I've always tried to teach you that the truth wuz the right thing."

Paul laughed.

"Sol," he asked, "did you ever see a game of chess?"

"Chess? What's that? Is it a mark you shoot at?"

"No; you play it on a board with little figures made of wood, if you haven't got anything else. My father has a set of chessmen, and he plays often with Mr. Pennypacker, our school teacher. He's played with me, too, and I can show you how to make the things and to play."

A look of interest came into Sol's eyes.

"We've got lots o' time," he said. "S'pose you do it, Paul. I know I kin learn. I ain't so sure o' Jim Hart thar."

Jim was also interested, so much so that he forgot to reply to Shif'less Sol.

"How'll you do it?" he asked.

Paul's reply was to begin at once. He cut a big square piece of white fanned deerskin, and upon this he marked the little squares with coal-black. Then the three of them went to work with their sharp hunting knives, carving out the wooden figures. The results were crude, but they had enough shape for identification, and then Paul began to teach the game itself.

Sol and Jim were really men of strong intellect, and they had plenty of patience. Paul was surprised at their progress. They were soon thinking for themselves, and when Paul himself did not want to play, the two would fight it out over the deerskin.

"It's a slow game, but good," said Shif'less Sol. "It 'pears to me that a man to be at the head o' 'em all in this would hev to do nothin' else all his life."

"That is so," said Paul.

"Jim, thar ain't no earthly chance for you," said Shif'less Sol.

"I guess I've got you this time, anyhow," said Jim, with a deep chuckle of satisfaction. "Jest look at that thar board, Sol Hyde. Ef you ain't druv into a corner so you can't move this way nor that, then you can hev the huntin' shirt right off my back."

Shif'less Sol examined the deerskin square attentively.

"Blamed ef it ain't so," he said in a tone of deep disgust. "It wuz an accident, nuthin' but an accident, or else I've been talkin' too much."

"That's what you're always doin', Sol Hyde—talkin' too much."

"Then we'll jest try it over ag'in, an' I'll show you what it is to play ag'inst a real smart man."

They were deep in a fresh game a few moments later, and Paul went outside. He was glad to see them so interested, because he knew that otherwise the curse of dullness might fall upon