Sol and Silent Tom, wrapped in their blankets, looked in truth like Roman senators.
“Will you tell us, Henry, what you found out while we wuz away?” asked the shiftless one. Henry had made a scouting expedition while the two were gone for the powder and lead.
“I made one journey across the Ohio,” replied their chief, “and at night I went near a Shawnee village. Red Eagle was there, and so were Blackstaffe and Wyatt. Lying in the bushes near the fire by which they sat, I could catch enough of their talk to learn that the Shawnee and Miami nations are going to bend all their energies and powers to our destruction. That is settled.”
“I feel a heap flattered,” said Shif’less Sol, “that so many warriors should be sent ag’inst us, who are only five. What wuz it that old feller was always sayin’, Paul, every time he held up a bunch o’ fresh figs before the noses o’ the Roman senators?”
“Delenda est Carthago, which is Latin, Sol, and it means just now, when I give it a liberal translation, that we five must be wiped clean off the face of the earth.”
“I’ve heard you say often, Paul, that Latin was a dead language, an’ so all them old dead sayin’s won’t hev any meanin’ fur us. I kin live long on the threats o’ Braxton Wyatt an’ Blackstaffe, an’ so kin all o’ us. But go on, Henry. I ’pologize fur interruptin’ the presidin’ officer.”
“I learned all I could there,” continued Henry, “but I was able to gather only their general intention, that is their resolve to crush us, a plan that both Wyatt and Blackstaffe urged. However, when I trailed a large band two days later, and crept near their camp, I discovered more.”
“What wuz it?” exclaimed the shiftless one, leaning forward a little, his face showing tense and eager in the glow of the flames.
“They’re going to spread a net for us. Not one body of warriors will seek us, but many. Red Eagle will lead a band, Yellow Panther will be at the head of another, Braxton Wyatt will be in charge of a third, Blackstaffe will take a fourth, and there will be at least seven or eight more, though some of them may unite later. Shif’less Sol has put it right. We’ll be honored as men were never honored before in this wilderness. At least a thousand warriors, brave and skillful men, all, will be hunting us, two hundred to one and maybe more.”
“And while they’re hunting us,” said Paul, his eyes glistening, “we’ll draw ’em off from the settlements, and we’ll be serving our people just as much as we did when we were destroying the big guns, and filling the warriors with superstitious alarm.”
“True in every word,” said Henry, his soul rising for the contest. “Let ’em come on and we’ll lead ’em such a chase that their feet will be worn to the bone, and their minds will be full of despair!”
“You put it right,” said the shiftless one. “I think I’ll enjoy bein’ a fox fur awhile. The forest is full o’ holes an’ dens, an’ when they dig me out o’ one I’ll be off fur another.”
“We know the wilderness as well as they do,” said Henry, “and we can use as many tricks as they can. Now, since they’re spreading a great net, we must take the proper steps to evade it. Having besieged our refuge here once, they’ll naturally look again for us in this place. If they catch us inside they’ll sit outside until they starve us to death.”
“Which means,” said Paul regretfully, “that we must leave our nice dry home.”
“So it does, but not, I think, before tomorrow morning, and we’ll use the hours meanwhile to good advantage. We must begin at once molding into bullets the lead that Sol and Tom brought.”
Every one of the five carried with him that necessary implement in the wilderness, a bullet mold, and they began the task immediately, all save Henry, who went outside, despite the fierce rain, and scouted a bit among the bushes and trees. The four made bullets fast, melting the lead in a ladle that Jim carried, pouring it into the molds, and then dropping the shining and deadly pellets one by one into their pouches. Three of them talked as they worked, but Silent Tom did not speak for a full hour. Then he said:
“We’ll have five hundred apiece.”
Shif’less Sol looked at him reprovingly.
“Tom,” he said, “I predicted a while ago that the time wuz soon comin’ when you’d talk us to death. You used five words then, when you know your ’lowance is only one an hour.”
Tom Ross flushed under his tan. He hated, above all things, to be garrulous. “Sorry,” he muttered, and continued his work with renewed energy and speed. The bullets seemed to drop in a shining stream from his mold into his pouch. But Shif’less Sol talked without ceasing, his pleasant chatter encouraging them, as music cheers troops for battle.
“It ain’t right fur me to hev to work this way,” he said, “me sich a lazy man. I ought to lay over thar on a blanket, an’ go to sleep while Jim does my share ez well ez his own.”
“When I’m doin’ your share, Sol Hyde,” said Long Jim, “you’ll be dead. Not till then will I ever tech a finger to your work. You are a lazy man, ez you say, an’ fur sev’ral years now I’ve been tryin’ to cure you uv it, but I ain’t made no progress that I kin see.”
“I don’t want you to make progress, Jim. I like to be lazy, an’ jest now I feel pow’ful fine, fed well, an’ layin’ here, wrapped in a blanket before a good warm fire.”
Henry went back to the cleft, and took another long look. The conditions had not changed, save that night was coming and the wilderness was chill and hostile. The wind blew with a steady shrieking sound, and the driving rain struck like sleet. Leaves fell before it, and in every depression of the earth the water stood in pools. Over this desolate scene the faint sun was sinking and the twilight, colder and more solemn than the day, was creeping. He looked at the wet forest and the coming dusk, and then back at the dry hollow and the warm fire behind him. The contrast was powerful, but only one choice was left to them.
“Boys,” he said, “we’ll have to make the most of tonight.”
“Because we must leave our home in the morning?” said Paul.
“Yes, that’s it. We’ll have to take to the woods, no matter how hard it is. Chance doesn’t favor us this time. I fancy the band led by Braxton Wyatt will make straight for our house here.”
“Since it’s the last dry bed I’ll have fur some time I’m goin’ to sleep,” said Shif’less Sol plaintively. “Everybody pesters a lazy man, an’ I mean to use the little time I hev.”
“You’ve a right to it, Sol,” said Henry, “because you’ve walked long and far, and you’ve brought what we needed most. The sooner you and Tom go to sleep the better. Paul, you join ’em and Jim and I will watch.”
The shiftless one and the silent one turned on their sides, rested their heads on their arms and in a minute or two were off to the land of slumber. Paul was slower, but in a quarter of an hour or so he followed them to the same happy region. Long Jim put out the fire, lest the gleam of the coals through the cleft should betray their presence to a creeping enemy—although neither he nor Henry expected any danger at present—and took his place beside his watchful comrade.
The two did not talk, but in the long hours of rain and darkness they guarded the entrance. Their eyes became so used to the dusk that they could see far, but they saw nothing alive save, late in the night, a lumbering black bear, driven abroad and in the storm by some restless spirit. Long Jim watched the ungainly form, as it shambled out of sight into a thicket.
“A bad conscience, I reckon,” he said. “That b’ar would be layin’ snug in his den ef he didn’t hev somethin’ on his mind. He’s ramblin’ ’roun’ in the rain an’ cold, cause’s he’s done a wrong deed, an’ can’t sleep fur thinkin’ uv it. Stole his pardner’s berries an’ roots, mebbe.”
“Perhaps