the fording all but dry-shod.
But there he would be in open view of the Indians, should they chance to
be looking that way; whereas, by making the passage from where he was
standing, he could throw between himself and them a small cane-brake,
which crowned the opposite bank a short distance above. Far rather had
the Fighting Nigger gone into the dance of death, rigged out in all his
martial bravery--his moccasins, his bear-skin leggins, his bear-skin
hunting-shirt, his bear-skin war-cap, and his war-belt with its gleaming
death-steel--guise so well beseeming the Big Black Brave with a bushy
head. But in a game so desperate, with objects so precious and dear at
stake, the indulgence of so small a vanity were another thought not
worth the second thinking. Therefore did the magnanimous Burl dismantle
himself at once. Aware that, in the coming contest, he should barely
have time to let fly the single bullet already in his rifle, when he
must take to his hatchet and knife, and that thereafter his powder-horn
and ammunition-pouch would be but hindering encumbrances, he divested
himself of these appendages, also laying with them his moccasins,
leggins, and hunting-shirt, in a pile together on the river bank. The
next moment, with Grumbo swimming, hand over hand, close at his side, he
was half way across the river, with nothing of him visible above the
dimpled surface but his enormous bear-skin cap, and his right arm
holding Betsy Grumbo high aloft to keep her priming dry.

The passage swimmingly effected, our two adventurers made their
reaeppearance on the opposite bank, with their bulky dimensions brought
down by their wetting to somewhat lanker proportions--Grumbo with his
shaggy coat buttoned close about him, Burl with his buckskin shirt and
breeches clinging clammily to his body and limbs. But of his martial
rigging, the war-belt, with his tomahawk and hunting-knife, still
remained; the bear-skin war-cap, too, which once rammed down firmly upon
his head was never to quit that place, saving with the scalp it covered,
or with the successful winding up of his adventure.

Between him and the mouth of the glen lay a narrow strip of bottom land,
the crossing of which, overhung as it was by the very nose of the
enemy's lookout, would demand his utmost caution and address. Again
availing themselves of gully, weeds, and grass, to screen their
movements, and making their way through them as before, they succeeded
at length in gain