a mile from shore
I saw we were in great peril. Uncle Eb reached for his rifle, his hand
trembling.

'Sink 'em,' I shouted, 'an' do it quick or they'll sink us.'

My old companion took careful aim and his ball hit them right on the
starboard bow below the water line. A splash told where it had landed.
They stopped yelling. The man in the bow clapped his hat against the
side of the boat.

'Guess we've gin 'em a little business t' ten' to,' said Uncle Eb as he
made haste to load his rifle.

The Indian at the bow was lifting his rifle again. He seemed to reel as
he took aim. He was very slow about it. I kept pulling as I watched him.
I saw that their boat was slowly sinking. I had a strange fear that he
would hit me in the stomach. I dodged when I saw the flash of his rifle.
His ball struck the water, ten feet away from us, and threw a spray into
my face.

Uncle Eb had lifted his rifle to shoot again. Suddenly the Indian, who
had shot at us, went overboard. In a second they were all in the water,
their boat bottom up.

'Now take yer time,' said Uncle Eb coolly, a frown upon his face.

'They'll drown,' said I.

'Don't care if they do, consam 'em,' he answered. 'They're some o' them
St Regis devils, an' when they git whisky in 'em they'd jes' soon kill
ye as look at ye. They am' no better 'n rats.'

We kept on our way and by and by a wind came up that gave us both some
comfort, for we knew it would soon blow them ashore. Ab Thomas had come
to our camp and sat with Tip and Gerald when we got there. We told of
our adventure and then Ab gave us a bad turn, and a proper appreciation
of our luck, by telling us that they were a gang of cut-throats--the
worst in the wilderness.

'They'd a robbed ye sure,' he said. 'It's the same gang 'at killed a man
on Cat Mountain las' summer, an' I'll bet a dollar on it.'

Tip had everything ready for our journey home. Each day Gerald had grown
paler and thinner. As we wrapped him in a shawl and tenderly helped him
into the wagon I read his doom in his face. We saw so much of that kind
of thing in our stern climate we knew what it meant. Our fun was over.
We sat in silence, speeding down the long hills in the fading light of
the afternoon. Those few solemn hours in which I heard only the wagon's
rumble and the sweet calls of the whip-poor-will-waves of music on a sea
of silence-started me in a way of thought which has led me high and low
these many years and still invites me. The