The Free Rangers: A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi. Altsheler Joseph Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ was it the ripple again? He rose half to his feet, and instantly his eye caught a glimpse of something brown upon the edge of the boat. It was a human hand, the brown, powerful hand of a savage.

      The glance of Shif'less Sol followed the hand and saw a brown face emerging from the water and fog. Quick as a flash he fired. There was a terrible, unearthly cry, the hand slipped from the boat and the head sank from view.

      "Up! up! boys!" cried Sol in thunderous tones. "We're attacked by swimmin' savages!"

      He snatched up one of the double-barreled pistols and fired at another head on the water. The others were awake in an instant and rose up, rifles in hand. But they saw only a splash of blood on the stream that was gone in a moment, then the thick, whitish fog closed in again, and after that silence! But they knew Sol too well to doubt him, and the momentary red splash would have converted even the ignorant.

      "Lie low!" exclaimed Henry. "Everybody down behind the sides of the boat! They may fire at any time!"

      The boat was built of thick timber, through which no bullet of that time could go, and they crouched down, merely peeping over the edges and presenting scarcely any target. They had their own rifles and the extra fowling pieces and pistols were made ready, also.

      But nothing came from the great pall of whitish fog, and the silence was chilly and heavy. It was the most uncanny thing in all Paul's experience. Beyond a doubt they were surrounded by savage enemies, but from which side they would come, and when, nobody could tell until they were at the very side of the boat.

      "How many did you see, Sol?" whispered Henry.

      "Only two, but one of 'em won't ever attack us again."

      "The others must be near by in their canoes, and the swimmers may have been scouts and skirmishers. They know where we are, but we don't know where they are."

      "That's so," said Shif'less Sol, "an' it gives 'em an advantage."

      "Which, perhaps, we can take from 'em by moving our own boat."

      Henry was about to put his plan into action, but they heard a light splash in the water to the west, and another to the north. Spots of piercing red light appeared in the fog, and many rifles cracked. Fortunately, all had thrown themselves down, and the bullets spent themselves in the wood of the boat's side. Henry and Sol and Tom fired back at the flashes, but more rifle shots came out of the fog, and those on the boat had no way of telling whether any of their bullets had hit.

      "I think we'd better hold our fire," whispered Henry between rifle shots. "It's wasting bullets to shoot at a fog."

      The others nodded and waited. A long cry, quavering at first, and then rising to a fierce top note to die away later in a ferocious, wolfish whine came through the fog. It was uttered by many throats, and in the uncanny, whitish gloom it seemed to be on all sides of them. Then shouts and shots both ceased and the heavy silence came again.

      "Now is our time," whispered Henry. "Paul, steer southward. Jim, you and Tom row, and Sol and I will be ready with the guns. Keep your heads down as low as you can."

      Jim Hart and Tom Ross took the oars, pulling them through the water with extreme caution and slowness. All knew that sharp ears were listening in the flooded forest, and the splash of oars would bring the war canoes at once. But they were determined that the fog which was such a help to their enemies should be an equal help to them also.

      Slowly the heavy boat crept through the water. Paul, at the tiller, steered with judgment and craft, and his was no light task. Now and then low boughs were lapped in the water and bushes submerged to their tops grew in the way. To become tangled in them might be fatal and to scrape against them would be a signal to their enemies, but Paul steered clear every time.

      They had gone perhaps fifty yards when Henry gave a signal to stop and Jim and Tom rested on their oars. Then they heard a burst of firing behind them, and a smile of saturnine triumph spread slowly but completely over the face of Shif'less Sol.

      "They're shootin' at the place whar we wuz, an' whar we ain't now," he whispered to Henry.

      "Yes," Henry whispered back, "they haven't found out yet that we've left, but they are likely to do it pretty soon. I hope now that this fog will hang on just as thick as it can. Start up again, boys."

      "'Twould be funny," whispered Sol, "ef the savages should find us an' chase us right into the bosoms o' the Spaniards."

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      1

      An early French and Spanish name for Kentucky.

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1

An early French and Spanish name for Kentucky.

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