“Take good care o’ the twins!” called out Sam Barringford. And then he gave each a tight hug, for he did not know but that their father would be along to take them away before his return.
“Good-bye, Lucy,” said Joseph Morris, to his wife, as he gave her a last embrace. “Remember, I shall be back again as soon as possible. Do not worry while I am away.”
“How can I help but worry?” she answered, through her tears. “The West is such a wild country, and the Indians and those wicked Frenchmen are so cruel! If you give them the chance, they will kill you, and all of the others, too, just as they did brother James and his party!”
“We shall try to be careful.”
Everything was now in readiness for the start, and at the command from Joseph Morris the men fell into place and set off, the pack-horses with their drivers occupying the middle of the little train. The boundless West and the mighty forest lay before them. Would they succeed or fail in their mission?
CHAPTER XXII
A FIGHT AMONG WILD BEASTS
“There is no use in talking, this is certainly slow traveling. If it wasn’t for the pack-horses we could get along twice as fast.”
It was Henry who spoke, and he addressed his father. The pair were trudging along the snow-clad trail, with Dave and Sam Barringford slightly in advance. It was a mild, clear day in January, with the sun kissing every mound of white and causing it to glitter as if with diamonds.
The little expedition had been on the march four days, and all evidence of civilization had been left behind. They were taking what Sam Barringford and two of the other frontiersmen considered a “short cut” on the route to Fort Pitt. Whether or not they would stop at the fort when they arrived in that vicinity was still an open question. On the one hand, they did not wish to lose the time to do so, and on the other, they wanted to make certain that no news from the West had come to the stronghold during their absence.
So far they had seen no trace of the Indians—indeed, they had met no strangers of any kind. The loneliness of the wilderness winter was on all sides of them. Sometimes they journeyed for hours through the untracked snow without a single sound disturbing them. At times this oppressiveness was hard on Dave and caused him to grow so “blue” that he hardly knew what to do. Henry tried to cheer him up, but with little success.