The Pioneer Boys of the Ohio
CHAPTER I
AFTER FRESH VENISON
"Shall we give it up for to-day, Sandy?"
"But the afternoon is only half spent, Bob, and we have had such poor luck hunting."
"Just so; but it might have been worse. Two hickory-fed squirrels and a plump 'possum make a fair bag after such a hard winter."
"Not so very much where there are five mouths to fill. Oh! Bob, if only we could get the deer that made these tracks! I'm tired of jerked venison." ([Note 1.])[A]
Robert Armstrong, sixteen years of age, looked down upon the ground where the trail of the deer was well defined, and evidently he, too, felt some of the eagerness that possessed his more impulsive brother.
It was the days previous to the Revolution. Around the two youths stretched the great primeval Virginia wilderness, sparsely settled, and hedged in by the chain of Alleghany Mountains, beyond which only a few venturesome spirits had ever dared journey; and some of these bold pioneers had never come back to tell the tale of their discoveries and exploits.
The two boys had started from their cabin home, just outside a small Virginia town, determined to secure fresh food for the family, at that time facing unusual privation.
Alexander, or Sandy, as he was always called, the impetuous one, seldom looked any distance ahead, so that it was Robert who many times found himself compelled to pull his younger brother out of serious difficulties.
Still, both lads, having been born and reared on the Virginia frontier, were really older through experience than their years would indicate.
In those strenuous days of pioneering, boys had to learn how to take care of themselves very soon after they began to walk. Their daily life brought them in touch with the perils of the wilderness. They were taught how to handle a gun at five years of age, and the tracks made by all wild animals soon became as plain to them as the pages of a printed book to a scholar.
Sandy, seeing his more cautious brother hesitate, renewed his pleading.
"We need this deer very much, Bob," he went on, eagerly. "Since father lost his place with old Jason Diggett, things have gone hard with us at home. Mother tries to smile and cheer us up, but every door has been shut against poor father since that tobacco barn burned down, and he was accused of setting fire to it."
"Yes," said the other, a frown crossing his young face as though painful memories had been stirred up by his brother's words, "but they were not able to prove anything against father, and we know that he could never have done such a thing."
"But the deer," continued Sandy, persistently; "why not try for it? Perhaps it may be feeding close by, in some glade where the trees have sheltered the grass, or where there are tender twigs to be nipped off. Say yes, Bob, and let us start right away."
The older boy cast a quick look upward, and his gaze rested longest in the quarter where the forest wall was broken, allowing a view of the gray sky.
"The air is raw, and I'm sure a storm is coming, late though the season is," he remarked, slowly.
"Well, what of that?" declared Sandy, impatiently. "We are neither sugar nor salt, to be washed away by rain or snow. Just think how mother would smile if she saw us carrying home a nice fat buck, or even a doe? Bob, say yes! This chance is too good to be lost."
Apparently his argument carried the day. That last stroke swept the more cautious Robert quite off his feet, for he loved his dear little mother above all things on earth, and the thought of pleasing her made him ignore his inner warnings.
"All right, then, Sandy; let's call it a go. Just to be able to carry home a store of fresh meat we'll take chances. And now to follow the tracks."
With that he bent his keen gaze upon the ground, and immediately started along the trail left by the deer, Sandy following close at his heels.
Both lads carried the old-time flint-lock muskets, such as were in general use during those early days. They served their purpose fairly well, especially when in the steady hands of those who knew life often depended on accuracy of aim. Many woodrangers and trappers, however, had guns with longer barrels, which they called rifles, and capable of sending a patched bullet with unerring skill a great distance.
In and out among the trees the two boys moved along. Not a single word passed between them until at least a mile had been covered. Then Sandy could restrain his impatience no longer. It was always a difficult thing to keep him "bottled up" when speech was concerned, and his brother Bob often declared he would make a good lawyer, or a parson, he liked to hear himself talk so much.
"Are we getting closer, Bob? Is the trail any fresher than before? Oh! I thought I saw something move just then!" he whispered in the other's ear.
"Where?" demanded Bob, instantly, as he turned his head around, a look of concern on his face; for, while the Indians of Virginia gave little trouble to the settlers at that day, they were not always to be trusted.
"Never mind," returned Sandy, with a little chuckle; "for I see now it was only a poor, scared rabbit bounding away. But how about the deer, brother?"
"We must be near him," said Bob, gravely; "and I believe he will turn out to be a five-prong buck, to judge from the size of his hoofs. Silence, now, and we will go on. Remember to keep a close watch ahead, and, if you get a good sight, send your lead back of his foreleg sure."
"You can depend on me, Bob," replied the younger lad; and it was not boastfulness that made him say this, for he had long since developed into a remarkably clever marksman.
In the fall, when the first snows drifted down through the valleys of Virginia, the settlers always held shooting matches, where the best shots of the country competed for prizes, usually some wild turkeys that had been trapped alive. And more than a few times Sandy had held his own with the celebrated sharpshooters among the buckskin-clad hunters from the trails. No eye was quicker than his to glance along the shiny barrel of a musket; and when he pulled the trigger his lead usually found its mark, even though the target were but the ever moving head of a turkey, whose body was hidden in the ground, fully an hundred yards distant from the marksman.
Once more the two boys pushed on. Before five minutes passed Bob noticed something that gave him a little concern. He had caught sight of the first snowflake that came scurrying along on the wings of the rising wind. A little thing in itself, but which might mean a tremendous lot to these boys, miles away from home, and surrounded by a trackless forest. In another five minutes, just as he had feared, the snow was beginning to descend heavily, so that his task of following the trail of the deer promised to come to a speedy end, as the ground began to be covered with a white mantle.
There was only one thing that could be done now, if they meant to pursue the hunt any further. Bob of late had been noting the general direction taken by the deer; and they could keep pushing on, each pair of eyes on the alert for signs of the expected quarry.
Now it became necessary to bring to the fore all the knowledge of woodcraft the boys possessed. They must judge at a glance just how a deer would proceed while pushing through the forest, avoiding such dense thickets as promised to entangle his antlers, and at the same time seeking shelter from possible enemies.
Suddenly Bob came to a stop, and whispered:
"Look ahead to where that pawpaw jungle ends! Something moved there; and blest if I don't think it must be our game!"
Even as he finished speaking, out of the screening hedge leaped a gallant buck, his head thrown back, and every muscle in his frame answering to his fear of human kind.
It was a pretty sight, and one calculated to make the blood bound more quickly through the veins of a hunter; but neither of the boys delayed even one second in order to admire the scene. Their one thought was of the possibility of their eagerly anticipated supply of meat making off on its own rapidly flying hoofs.
Sandy was a bit the quicker in firing, for, being nervous by nature, he knew how to aim more by instinct than by going through a set habit. Still, the two discharges seemed to roll into one; and, with their hearts in their mouths, the young marksmen looked to ascertain what the result of the shots might be.
"Huzza! he is down!" almost shrieked Sandy, as the big buck made a tremendous bound into the air, and came crashing upon the snow-covered earth, where he tried in vain to regain his feet.
"Stop! Remember what old Reuben told you always to do!" cautioned Bob, as he thrust himself in front of Sandy, already in the act of leaping forward.
"I forgot," murmured the other, as with trembling hand he started to reload his gun, some of the powder from his horn slipping out of his shaking fingers as he attempted to pour it into the muzzle of the barrel.
Then came a greased bullet in a patch of linen, being pushed down after the powder had been rammed good and hard. To prime the flint-lock gun was no great difficulty, though constant vigilance was needed in order to make sure that the priming, so essential to a discharge, be not shaken from the pan by accident.
"Now let us go up," said Sandy, after both had reloaded.
"He's kicking his last," remarked his brother, quietly, "and there is no fear of our losing him. I wonder now if I missed. You were, as usual, ahead of me in firing, Sandy. And I saw him quiver even before I pulled trigger, so I know you hit him."
When they bent over the now motionless quarry it was found that there were two bullet-holes in the deer. ([Note 2.])
"Yours is the one behind the shoulder, Sandy, and that killed him instantly. He could have run a mile or more with the wound through the body that I gave him. But never mind, we have had great luck, and mother will be pleased when we carry this meat home."
Bob lost no time in bleeding the game. They were so far away from the cabin that it would be impossible to "tote" the deer there intact; so it was quickly determined to cut up the venison and select the choice portions.
Both boys carried hunting knives, and they set to work without delay. As they labored they became so interested in what they were doing that neither seemed to pay any particular attention to the remarkable change that had come over the weather, until after a while Sandy started to complain that it was getting so dark he could hardly see how to work.
Then an exclamation from his brother caused him to raise his head. What he saw was anything but reassuring. The snow was coming down between the trees in blinding sheets, driven before a cold wind, that seemed to be growing stronger with every passing minute.
"No getting back to the cabin for us to-night, Sandy," declared the older one, with a shake of his head. "This promises to be as bad a storm as we've had all winter, and even at the shortest you know we'd have a five-hour tramp back home. So we must make the best of a bad bargain and camp here in the woods."
"Well," remarked Sandy, whom no danger ever daunted, "anyhow, we've got plenty to eat, and can keep warm, unless both of us forgot to bring flint and steel along, which I know is not so, for here are mine in my pouch, and some dry tinder as well."
By the time they had finished the task of cutting up the deer, and secured all the choice portions in the skin, the forest was swathed in a mantle of white; and, on the wind that screeched so noisily while hurrying past, came new armies of scurrying snowflakes that beat against the faces of the lads until they fairly stung with the pain. Evidently the young pioneers were in for an experience besides which all previous encounters with snow-storms would pale into utter insignificance.