"How do you propose to get out of the channel?"
"Let us work the craft into shore, and wait till the moon rises before starting. Thinking that we are in the middle of the current, they will not look along the bank for us, and we shall thus be safe until we can see where we are."
It was Waring who first proposed to run in under the protection of the bank, and he had never once doubted its expediency. He advocated it now so earnestly that neither Hezekiah nor Pat made any objection. Accordingly, the long, sweeping oars were dipped deeply and silently into the water, and under the powerful impulse of the sturdy-armed men it began gradually veering off toward the Ohio shore. The greatest caution was exercised, as the creaking of one of the sweeps might tell any savages in the vicinity what the whites were doing. This was a delicate task, but our friends believed they were succeeding as well they could wish. All at once, the dark line of trees were discovered through the darkness, and ceasing their efforts, the boat continued approaching, until the branches brushed over their heads, and the bottom, striking the mud of the stream, the forward motion of the craft was checked.
The whites had every reason to be pleased with their situation had not a slight accident caused them a little anxiety. As Pat Mulroony attempted to shove a limb from before him, it broke with a cracking noise that could have been heard across the river. This caused so much apprehension, that for a time, Waring was on the point of working the boat out into the current again; but, finally, his fears subsided, and he concluded to remain in his present position until the rising of the moon. The flat-boat lay about ten feet from the mainland, and had grounded so slightly that had it not been secured by tying it to one of the branches ahead, it would have floated off again. This was the precise situation in which Waring had been anxious to get it; and, excepting the slight accident alluded to above, he had every reason to be satisfied with the state of affairs. The darkness was so great, and the peculiar position in which the craft lay so favorable, that no Shawanoe would have discovered it in passing within a dozen feet of it had not his suspicion been first attracted to it.
The three whites remained on deck, now and then whispering to each other, and passing on tiptoe from one portion to another, but nothing more of their enemies was seen or heard for a long time.
Pat Mulroony was leaning over the prow, as he had been leaning for the last hour, and was looking down in the water, when he discerned a dark, ball-like object moving along on the surface. At first, he took it to be a piece of floating wood; but, as it passed around the prow, in a manner that the motion of the current could not have caused, he was not long in identifying it. It was the head of an Indian.
Communicating this fact to Waring and Hezekiah, the hold upon the branch was loosened, and under the additional impulse of the oars, the flat bottom was once more floating down the Ohio.
CHAPTER V.