The Scouts of the Valley by Joseph A. Altsheler (best ebook reader .TXT) 📕

comf'table we wuz thar. But we're a long way from it now. That island uv ours must be seven or eight hundred miles from here, an' I reckon it's nigh to fifteen hundred to New Orleans, whar we wuz once.”

“Shet up,” said Tom Ross suddenly. “Time fur all uv you to go to sleep, an' I'm goin' to watch.”

“I'll watch,” said Henry.

“I'm the oldest, an' I'm goin' to have my way this time,” said Tom.

“Needn't quarrel with me about it,” said Shif'less Sol. “A lazy man like me is always willin' to go to sleep. You kin hev my watch, Tom, every night fur the next five years.”

He ranged himself against the wall, and in three minutes was sound asleep. Henry and Paul found room in the line, and they, too, soon slept. Tom sat at the door, one of the captured rifles across his knees, and watched the forest and the swamp. He saw the last flare of the distant lightning, and he listened to the falling of the rain drops until they vanished with the vanishing wind, leaving the forest still and without noise.

Tom was several years older than any of the others, and, although powerful in action, he was singularly chary of speech. Henry was the leader, but somehow Tom looked upon himself as a watcher over the other four, a sort of elder brother. As the moon came out a little in the wake of the retreating clouds, he regarded them affectionately.

“One, two, three, four, five,” he murmured to himself. “We're all here, an' Henry come fur us. That is shorely the greatest boy the world hez ever seed. Them fellers Alexander an' Hannibal that Paul talks about couldn't hev been knee high to Henry. Besides, ef them old Greeks an' Romans hed hed to fight Wyandots an' Shawnees an' Iroquois ez we've done, whar'd they hev been?”

Tom Ross uttered a contemptuous little sniff, and on the edge of that sniff Alexander and Hannibal were wafted into oblivion. Then he went outside and walked about the islet, appreciating for the tenth time what a wonderful little refuge it was. He was about to return to the hut when he saw a dozen dark blots along the high bough of a tree. He knew them. They were welcome blots. They were wild turkeys that had found what had seemed to be a secure roosting place in the swamp.

Tom knew that the meat of the little bear was nearly exhausted, and here was more food come to their hand. “We're five pow'ful feeders, an' we'll need you,” he murmured, looking up at the turkeys, “but you kin rest thar till nearly mornin'.”

He knew that the turkeys would not stir, and he went back to the hut to resume his watch. Just before the first dawn he awoke Henry.

“Henry,” he said, “a lot uv foolish wild turkeys hev gone to rest on the limb of a tree not twenty yards from this grand manshun uv ourn. 'Pears to me that wild turkeys wuz made fur hungry fellers like us to eat. Kin we risk a shot or two at 'em, or is it too dangerous?”

“I think we can risk the shots,” said Henry, rising and taking his rifle. “We're bound to risk something, and it's not likely that Indians are anywhere near.”

They slipped from the cabin, leaving the other three still sound asleep, and stepped noiselessly among the trees. The first pale gray bar that heralded the dawn was just showing in the cast.

“Thar they are,” said Tom Ross, pointing at the dozen dark blots on the high bough.

“We'll take good aim, and when I say 'fire!' we'll both pull trigger,” said Henry.

He picked out a huge bird near the end of the line, but he noticed when he drew the bead that a second turkey just behind the first was directly in his line of fire. The fact aroused his ambition to kill both with one bullet. It was not a mere desire to slaughter or to display marksmanship, but they needed the extra turkey for food.

“Are you ready, Tom?” he asked. “Then fire.”

They pulled triggers, there were two sharp reports terribly loud to both under the circumstances, and three of the biggest and fattest of the turkeys fell heavily to the ground, while the rest flapped their wings, and with frightened gobbles flew away.

Henry was about to rush forward, but Silent Tom held him back.

“Don't show yourself, Henry! Don't show yourself!” he cried in tense tones.

“Why, what's the matter?” asked the boy in surprise.

“Don't you see that three turkeys fell, and we are only two to shoot? An Injun is layin' 'roun' here some whar, an' he drawed a bead on one uv them turkeys at the same time we did.”

Henry laughed and put away Tom's detaining hand.

“There's no Indian about,” he said. “I killed two turkeys with one shot, and I'm mighty proud of it, too. I saw that they were directly in the line of the bullet, and it went through both.”

Silent Tom heaved a mighty sigh of relief, drawn up from great depths.

“I'm tre-men-jeous-ly glad uv that, Henry,” he said. “Now when I saw that third turkey come tumblin' down I wuz shore that one Injun or mebbe more had got on this snug little place uv ourn in the swamp, an' that we'd hev to go to fightin' ag'in. Thar come times, Henry, when my mind just natchally rises up an' rebels ag'in fightin', 'specially when I want to eat or sleep. Ain't thar anythin' else but fight, fight, fight, 'though I 'low a feller hez got to expect a lot uv it out here in the woods?”

They picked up the three turkeys, two gobblers and a hen, and found them large and fat as butter. More than once the wild turkey had come to their relief, and, in fact, this bird played a great part in the life of the frontier, wherever that frontier might be, as it shifted steadily westward. As they walked back toward the hut they faced three figures, all three with leveled rifles.

“All right, boys,” sang out Henry. “It's nobody but Tom and myself, bringing in our breakfast.”

The three dropped their rifles.

“That's good,” said Shif'less Sol. “When them shots roused us out o' our beauty sleep we thought the whole Iroquois nation, horse, foot, artillery an' baggage wagons, wuz comin' down upon us. So we reckoned we'd better go out an' lick 'em afore it wuz too late.

“But it's you, an' you've got turkeys, nothin' but turkeys. Sho' I reckoned from the peart way Long Jim spoke up that you wuz loaded down with hummin' birds' tongues, ortylans, an' all them other Roman and Rooshian delicacies Paul talks about in a way to make your mouth water. But turkeys! jest turkeys! Nothin' but turkeys!”

“You jest wait till you see me cookin' 'em, Sol Hyde,” said Long Jim. “Then your mouth'll water, an' it'll take Henry and Tom both to hold you back.”