arters. I did not tarry longer, but ran to tell Tom. He made bold to
risk a shot and light a fire, and thus we had buffalo meat for some days
after.

We were still in the mountains. The trail led down the river for a bit
through the worst of canebrakes, and every now and again we stopped
while Tom and Weldon scouted. Once the roan mare made a dash through the
brake, and, though Polly Ann burst through one way to head her off and
I another, we reached the bank of Richland Creek in time to see her nose
and the top of her pack above the brown water. There was nothing for it
but to swim after her, which I did, and caught her quietly feeding in
the cane on the other side. By great good fortune the other horse bore
the powder.

"Drat you, Nancy," said Polly Ann to the mare, as she handed me my
clothes, "I'd sooner carry the pack myself than be bothered with you."

"Hush," said I, "the redskins will get us."

Polly Ann regarded me scornfully as I stood bedraggled before her.

"Redskins!" she cried. "Nonsense! I reckon it's all talk about
redskins."

But we had scarce caught up ere we saw Tom standing rigid with his hand
raised. Before him, on a mound bared of cane, were the charred remains
of a fire. The sight of them transformed Weldon. His eyes glared again,
even as when we had first seen him, curses escaped under his breath, and
he would have darted into the cane had not Tom seized him sternly by the
shoulder. As for me, my heart hammered against my ribs, and I grew
sick with listening. It was at that instant that my admiration for
Tom McChesney burst bounds, and that I got some real inkling of what
woodcraft might be. Stepping silently between the tree trunks, his eyes
bent on the leafy loam, he found a footprint here and another there, and
suddenly he went into the cane with a sign to us to remain. It seemed an
age before he returned. Then he began to rake the ashes, and, suddenly
bending down, seized something in them,--the broken bowl of an Indian
pipe.

"Shawnees!" he said; "I reckoned so." It was at length the beseeching in
Polly Ann's eyes that he answered.

"A war party--tracks three days old. They took poplar."

To take poplar was our backwoods expression for embarking in a canoe,
the dugouts being fashioned from the great poplar trees.

I did not reflect then, as I have since and often, how great was the
knowledge and resource Tom practised that day. Our feeling for him
(Polly Ann's and mine) fell litt