“An’ if we do need ’em, which is like enough,” he told himself, as if in apology for his deceit; “they might jest prove life-savers—yeou never kin tell haow the cat’s agoin’ to jump; an’ they do say as a stitch in time saves yeour whole bacon.”
Having attached these bundles securely to their backs the pair were ready to start forth on their perilous errand—matching their wits and courage against the lawless spirits who had defied the power of Uncle Sam, believing it would take the whole U. S. army to dislodge them from such an isolated and natural fortress.
“First thing we’ve got to remember, partner,” said Jack, softly, as they began to plunge into the wild growth that filled the deep ravine from one side to the other, “is to get our bearings as we advance.”
“Gosh amighty! Jack, is that a go, when all we got to ’member is haow we kept aheadin’ ’long this ere coulie. I doant see haow anybody could go astray in sech a canyon as this same.”
“To be sure,” Jack assured him, “that’s true as long as this is the only old waterbed we’ll have to follow; which it isn’t, if you remember those directions Simeon sent in. Once we became a bit rattled as to which channel to follow, and it’d ruin all our calculations—the element of uncertainty has wrecked more clever plans than anything agoing. More than that, we must turn around and stare at the way things look from the other direction; because we’ll be heading back to our camp when we need to follow our trail. You know lots of landmarks may seem okay in going, which you’d never recognize when coming from the opposite quarter.”
“Yeah! I knowed that too, buddy,” affirmed Perk, with a grin; “read ’baout the same lots o’ times as a kid, when I used to soak in stories o’ them old days in Kentucky, that they called the Dark an’ Bloody Ground——Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Harrod an’ them forest rangers picked that trick up from the Shawnee Injuns they used to fight. We’ll face the other way heaps o’ times, an’ make picters o’ the scenery on aour minds; that’s okay with me, Jack.”
For some little time they had all they could do to push their way along, so matted were the vines and the underbrush, so extremely rough the footing.
Twice Perk had stumbled, and come near having an ugly fall; he even managed to skin his right knee painfully by coming in contact with a rock; but never a grunt did he emit, accustomed as he was to taking such things as part of the game.
“Mebbe naow this is what I get fur loadin’ me daown so heavy,” he told himself, under his breath; “but jest the same I aint ameanin’ to throw a single thing away; ’cause that’d sure turn aout to be jest what we needed most to save our skins.”
Later on, as they stood still and rested a bit, Perk again confided in his companion; he always did seem to suck more or less consolation out of these frequent “chinnings,” as they afforded him opportunities to see things through Jack’s eyes, an advantage Perk greatly appreciated.