"We must get away from here at once. We ought to have left long ago."
"I'm thinking ye're right, and I'm ready to do your bidding whenever you are ready. I came near crossing over that tree a good while ago, and I'm prepared to do it now if you say so."
"I'm not satisfied that that is the best course."
"Why not?"
"From what you have told me and what I have seen, the Shawanoes seem to be using that to-night as a bridge. I don't know how many have come and gone over it to-day. Suppose that a party of them made up their minds to cross at the same time we do?"
"And that's what some of 'em did when I was about to try it; if me gun hadn't wobbled behind me shoulder we'd have met on the log."
"The trees grow to the bank at each end of the log, so that if these two hadn't slanted across that little, narrow space off there to the left, we wouldn't have seen them until they stepped upon the foot-bridge. What I mean to say, Larry, is this: we have had such good fortune that we must not tempt Providence further by trying to cross here."
"How shall we manage it?"
"Go farther up the stream till we're well away from this place, where the Indians seem to be so plentiful."
"And maybe there isn't such a spot."