“Poison ivy,” says I.
“Got to go, anyhow. Maybe snake bite, maybe not; can’t tell. Can’t fix till we get on shore, eh? Got to fix boat.” Sammy seemed to think that when you had to do a thing the only way was to do it; and if rattlers and poison ivy got in the way, why, that was all there was to it—you just had to take what came. It made me feel sort of ashamed of myself to have a half-witted Indian setting a good example like that, and I noticed Mark was looking pretty sheepish.
“Sammy carry boys, eh? Mark pretty heavy, maybe, but Sammy can carry. Tallow he light.”
“Sammy’ll do nothin’ of the kind,” says Mark. “I can walk, I guess, if you can.”
“Me, too,” says I; but I wished I wasn’t so proud.
“All right. We go now, eh? Go quick and maybe dodge snake.” He grinned like it was a good joke. Maybe dodging rattlers is funny, but I never did anything I felt less like laughing at in my life; and there was the poison ivy, too.
Sammy stepped out of the boat and wallowed toward shore.
“Me n-next,” says Mark. “If a snake hits at me he can’t m-m-miss.”
“Not if he ain’t blind,” I says, as I followed after.
The way Mark went puffing and plunging like a hippopotamus the rattlers, if there were any around there, must have thought their last day was come. I bet they skedaddled.