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Smaller birds alighted on the raised poles, and several—a robin, a catbird and a little brown wren—ventured with hesitating boldness to peck at the crumbs the girls threw to them. Deer waded knee deep in the shallow water, and, lifting their heads, instantly became motionless and absorbed. Occasionally a buffalo appeared on a level stretch of bank, and, tossing his huge head, seemed inclined to resent the coming of this stranger into his domain.
All day the rafts drifted steadily and swiftly down the river, presenting to the little party ever-varying pictures of densely wooded hills, of jutting, broken cliffs with scant evergreen growth; of long reaches of sandy bar that glistened golden in the sunlight, and over all the flight and call of wildfowl, the flitting of woodland songsters, and now and then the whistle and bellow of the horned watchers in the forest.
The intense blue of the vault above began to pale, and low down in the west a few fleecy clouds, gorgeously golden for a fleeting instant, then crimson-crowned for another, shaded and darkened as the setting sun sank behind the hills. Presently the red rays disappeared, a pink glow suffused the heavens, and at last, as gray twilight stole down over the hilltops, the crescent moon peeped above the wooded fringe of the western bluffs.
“Hard an’ fast she is,” sang out Jeff Lynn, as he fastened the rope to a tree at the head of a small island. “All off now, an’ we’ll hev supper. Thar’s a fine spring under yon curly birch, an’ I fetched along a leg of deer meat. Hungry, little ’un?”
He had worked hard all day steering the rafts, yet Nell had seen him smiling at her many times during the journey, and he had found time before the early start to arrange for her a comfortable seat. There was now a solicitude in the frontiersman’s voice that touched her.
“I am famished,” she replied, with her bright smile. “I am afraid I could eat a whole deer.”
They all climbed the sandy slope and found themselves on the summit of an oval island, with a pretty glade in the middle surrounded by birches. Bill, the second raftsman, a stolid, silent man, at once swung his axe upon a log of drift-wood. Mr. Wells and Jim walked to and fro under the birches, and Kate and Nell sat on the grass watching with great interest the old helmsman as he came up from the river, his brown hands and face shining from the scrubbing he had given them. Soon he had a fire cheerfully blazing, and after laying out the few utensils, he addressed himself to Joe:
“I’ll tell ye right here, lad, good venison kin be spoiled by bad cuttin’ and cookin’. You’re slicin’ it too thick. See—thar! Now salt good, an’ keep outen the flame; on the red coals is best.”
With a sharpened stick Jeff held the thin slices over the fire for a few moments. Then he laid them aside on some clean white-oak chips Bill’s axe had provided. The simple meal of meat, bread, and afterward a drink of the cold spring water was keenly relished by the hungry voyagers. When it had been eaten, Jeff threw a log on his fire and remarked:
“Seein’ as how we won’t be in redskin territory fer awhile yit, we kin hev a fire. I’ll allow ye’ll all be chilly and damp from river-mist afore long, so toast yerselves good.”
“How far have we come today?” inquired Mr. Wells, his mind always intent on reaching the scene of his cherished undertaking.
“’Bout thirty-odd miles, I reckon. Not much on a trip, thet’s sartin, but we’ll pick up termorrer. We’ve some quicker water, an’ the rafts hev to go separate.”
“How quiet!” exclaimed Kate, suddenly breaking the silence that followed the frontiersman’s answer.
“Beautiful!” impetuously said Nell, looking up at Joe. A quick flash from his gray eyes answered her; he did not speak; indeed he had said little to her since the start, but his glance showed her how glad he was that she felt the sweetness and content of this wild land.
“I was never in a wilderness before,” broke in the earnest voice of the young minister. “I feel an almost overpowering sense of loneliness. I want to get near you all, I feel lost. Yet it is grand, sublime!”
“Here is the promised land—the fruitful life—Nature as it was created by God,” replied the old minister, impressively.
“Tell us a story,” said Nell to the old frontiersman, as he once more joined the circle round the fire.
“So, little ’un, ye want a story?” queried Jeff, taking up a live coal and placing it in the bowl of his pipe. He took off his coonskin cap and carefully laid it aside. His weatherbeaten face beamed in answer to the girl’s request. He drew a long and audible pull at his black pipe, and sent forth slowly a cloud of white smoke. Deliberately poking the fire with a stick, as if stirring into life dead embers of the past, he sucked again at his pipe and emitted a great puff of smoke that completely enveloped the grizzled head. From out that white cloud came his drawling voice.
“Ye’ve seen thet big curly birch over thar—thet ’un as bends kind of sorrowful like. Wal, it used to stand straight an’ proud. I’ve knowed thet tree all the years I’ve navigated this river, an’ it seems natural like to me thet it now droops dyin’, fer it shades the grave of as young, an’ sweet, an’ purty a lass as yerself, Miss Nell. Rivermen called this island George’s Island, ’cause Washington onct camped here; but of late years the name’s got changed, an’ the men say suthin’ like this: ‘We’ll try an’ make Milly’s birch afore sundown,’ jest as Bill and me hev done today. Some years agone I was comin’ up from Fort Henry an’ had on board my slow old scow a lass named Milly—we never learned her other name. She come to me at the fort, an’ tells as how her folks had been killed by Injuns, an’ she wanted to git back to Pitt to meet her sweetheart. I was ag’in her comin’ all along, an’ fust off I said ‘No.’ But when I seen tears in her blue eyes, an’ she puts her little hand on mine, I jest wilted, an’ says to Jim Blair, ‘She goes.’ Wal, jest as might hev been expected—an’ fact is I looked fer it—we wus tackled by redskins. Somehow, Jim Girty got wind of us hevin’ a lass aboard, an’ he ketched up with us jest below here. It’s a bad place, called Shawnee Rock, an’ I’ll show it to ye termorrer. The renegade, with his red devils, attacked us thar, an’ we had a fierce fight. Jim Blair, he was killed, an’ we had a time gittin’ away. Milly wus shot. She lived fer awhile, a couple of days, an’ all the time was so patient, an’ sweet, an’ brave with thet renegade’s bullet in her—fer he shot her, when he seen he couldn’t capture her—thet thar wusn’t a blame man of us who wouldn’t hev died to grant her prayer, which wus that she could live to onct more see her lover.”
There was a long silence, during which the old frontiersman sat gazing into the fire with sad eyes.
“We couldn’t do nuthin’, an’ we buried her thar under thet birch, where she smiled her last sad, sweet smile an’ died. Ever since then the river has been eatin’ away at this island. It’s only half as big as it was onct, an’ another flood will take away this sandbar, these few birches—an’ Milly’s grave.”
The old frontiersman’s story affected all his listeners. The elder minister bowed his head and prayed that no such fate might overtake his nieces. The young minister looked again, as he had many times that day, at Nell’s winsome face. The girls cast grave glances at the drooping birch, and their bright tears glistened in the fire glow. Once more Joe’s eyes glinted with that steely flash, and as he gazed out over the wide, darkening expanse of water his face grew cold and rigid.
“I’ll allow I might hev told a more cheerful story, an’ I’ll do so next time; but I wanted ye all, particular the lasses, to know somethin’ of the kind of country ye’re goin’ into. The frontier needs women; but jist yit it deals hard with them. An’ Jim Girty, with more of his kind, ain’t dead yit.”
“Why don’t someone kill him?” was Joe’s sharp question.
“Easier said than done, lad. Jim Girty is a white traitor, but he’s a cunnin’ an’ fierce redskin in his ways an’ life. He knows the woods as a crow does, an’ keeps outer sight ’cept when he’s least expected. Then ag’in, he’s got Simon Girty, his brother, an’ almost the whole redskin tribe behind him.