“I don’t wonder at it,” muttered the scout.
“Wal, I thought of ’em down here for a good while, and got a-wondering if I couldn’t sell ’em a good bargain out of my pack if they were going to housekeeping, and then I rolled over and was just going to sleep, when you made that thundering racket at the door. And now here I am up ag’in without having got a wink of sleep to-night.”
“You’ll be lucky if you ever do again,” muttered the scout. “If we can’t keep the red-skins out of here, you’ve taken your last nap and cheated the last one you ever will.”
The Yankee was about to make some rejoinder to this, when Sam Wilson broke in:
“This won’t do for us to stand talking here. We must keep a watch without. I will go up into the loft and station myself at one of the loopholes there. We mustn’t let the red-skins get up under the walls of the cabin unless we want to be smoked out.”
“I will go,” said Ned, making a move toward the ladder. “Do you stay here and make ready for their coming. I’ll keep my eyes open, and give the alarm the first glimpse I get on them.”
“I swan, I wish I was in New Hampshire,” exclaimed Peleg. “I’ll bet a dollar that ’ere pack will go afore I get out of this scrape.”
“What have you got for weapons?” demanded the scout, sharply. “We shall have need of every thing in that line afore morning. Have you got a rifle?”
“How in the name of Jerusalem do you think I can carry a rifle along with a pack? I guess you never was in the peddling line, was ye?”
“No.”