magine the days they spent together.
Back of the farm buildings lay the fields, all up and down the river
bank for miles. And back of the fields, crowding close to the edge of
the plowed ground, the big trees of an age-old forest rose. The great
wild woods ran straight back from the plantation for five hundred miles,
broken only by rivers and the steep slopes of the Alleghanies, as yet
hardly heard of by white men. Giant oaks, ashes and tulip trees mingled
with the pine and hemlock growth. The hillsides where the sun shone
through were thick with rhododendron and laurel. And all through this
sylvan paradise the upper branches and the underbrush teemed with wild
life. Squirrels, partridges and occasional turkeys offered frequent
marks for the long muzzle-loading rifles, while a thousand little song
birds flitted constantly through the leaves. Jeremy had never seen such
hunting in his colder northern country. The game was bigger and more
dangerous in New England, but never had he found it so plentiful. As the
boys were both good marksmen, a great rivalry sprang up between them.
They scorned any but the hardest shots--the bright eye of a squirrel
above a hickory limb fifty yards off or the downy form of a wood pigeon
preening in a tree top. Though a good deal of powder and lead was spent
in the process, they were shooting like old leather-stocking hunters by
the end of the week.

The last two days had to be spent indoors, for a heavy autumn rain that
came one night held over persistently and drenched the valley with a
sullen, steady pour. Little muddy rivulets swept down across the fields
and joined the already swollen current of the Brandywine. On the morning
when they started back, the river was running high and fast and yellow
along the low banks, but a bright sun shone, and a fresh breeze out of
the west promised fair weather.

The horses were left at the plantation. They took their guns and a day's
provisions and carried a long, narrow-beamed canoe down to the shore. It
was a dugout, quite unlike the graceful birch affairs that Jeremy had
seen among the Penobscots, but serviceable and seaworthy enough.

Job, happy to be on the water once more, took the stern paddle, Bob
knelt in the bow, and Jeremy squatted amidships with the blankets and
guns. With a cry of farewell to the kindly folk on the bank, they shoved
out and shot away down the swift river.

It was exciting work. The stream had overflowed its banks for man