“And I say to thee, find Clara and I will be content, Friend Winship,” added Mrs. Parsons.
In the canoe that Long Knife had occupied was a small bag containing Indian meal, and another containing pease, and a strip of jerked beef, so that those left behind would not starve during the absence of the men. The men themselves took nothing but the guns and horns of powder, ball and shot, with a tinder box, declaring that they would hunt down whatever they needed.
“Do not show yourselves on the river,” were Ezra Winship’s last words of caution. “Those redskins are still over there, and they may remain there for days, trying to locate us.”
After the two men had left, the spot seemed lonelier than ever. To occupy her time Mrs. Parsons soaked some of the pease in a hollow of water, and then set them to baking on a flat stone, rimmed with dried clay. On another flat stone she mixed some of the Indian meal into a dough which afterwards turned out into fairly good corn cakes. While this was going on Harry set to work fishing in a pool under the brushwood bordering the river, and caught several fish of fair size.
“To be sure, ’tis not eating fit for a king,” declared Mrs. Parsons, “but for such as ’tis, let us all be truly thankful.” And they were thankful.
While the others were thus occupied, with Harmony doing what she could to help the Quakeress, Joe took his way to the top of the rocks. Here grew a tree of good size, and this he easily climbed to the top.
The view he obtained from this elevation was a disappointment to him. As far as eye could reach stretched the hills and valleys, with here and there a stream of water and a tiny lake. Across the river directly in front of him he could see the late Indian camp, now deserted, and this was the only sign of life anywhere.
“Not even a deer, much less a white man or an Indian,” he murmured. “But then I suppose the redskins are keeping out of sight the same as ourselves.”
He looked long and earnestly in the direction his father and Pep Frost had taken, but neither of them appeared, and at last he descended and rejoined the others.
The day passed quietly until about four o’clock in the afternoon, when Harry, returning from another fishing expedition, a little further down the river, announced that two canoes were in sight, each containing at least half a dozen Indians.