The Indians lay under cover of the bushes, their gleaming eyes riveted upon their expected prize, but they made no movement, for they beheld a man standing upon the point which stretched out into the stream, a rifle in his hand, pacing up and down as if on guard.
As they gazed a strange sight greeted their astonished vision. Something was coming down the river in mid stream. It seemed to be a man, seated in a canoe.
The current swept him rapidly downward, and, as the nondescript craft came near, they saw a man seated astride of a log, keeping its head down the current by the aid of a flat stick which he held in his hand. As he neared the stockade he began to paddle vigorously, and whirled the head of the log more toward the shore. By this time the watcher on the point had run down to the water's edge, and the click of a rifle-lock sounded.
"Ahoy, there!" he shouted.
"Hello!" replied the man on the log. "How de dew?"
"Hadn't you better come ashore?" said the sentry, persuasively, pointing his rifle.
"Seeing it's yew, I donno but I had," replied the navigator, coolly. "Yew seem mighty pressing, somehow."
"I'd like to persuade you to come ashore," replied the sentry, with a laugh.
"Ain't I coming?" growled the man on the log. "Yew needn't put on sech style over me, I guess! I ain't said nothing tew yew, I judge. Don't be sech a 'tarnal fool tew keep p'inting that weepin at me. It might go off."