Mr. Moreland shook his head.
“Not that, I’ll warrant. Isabel isn’t the girl to tarry for so slight a cause, when she has promised to go and come quickly. Besides, since her recent misdemeanor, I can think of no one, alas! who regards her as a friend. I think I will go in search of her; we are losing time in waiting.”
“I wouldn’t do any sech thing, Mr. Moreland,” said one of the rangers. “’Tain’t likely ’ut harm has befell the gal ’twixt this an’ the fort, an’ ye knows nothin’ has happened to her thar. Jest keep yer seat; she’ll be hyur in a minute, I take it.”
“But you forget the loss of time.”
“I forgit nothin’. What’s a few minutes spent in idleness at sech a time as this? How long are it goin’ to take us to travel ten mile with the current? We mought make’t long ’fore mornin’.”
“True; I did not think of that. But, since that is the case, why would it not be possible to make the entire distance without stopping, provided we left here early in the evening?”
“We mought do it easy, ’cause I don’t reckon it’s more’n fifteen or sixteen mile, and the course lays down-stream. But ye must b’ar in mind, prudence has the preference over every thing. Never make haste ag’in’ prudence, whatever ye does. Us fellers wa’n’t sent with yer to row yer boats an’ shuffle ye off down’t t’other fort in a jiffy. We’re with ye to protect ye from danger if needcessary, an’ eff we go rattlin’ off as fast as we kin lug the oars, I opine it’ll soon be needcessary. The moon are settin’ now, an’ in five minutes it’ll be darker’n a stack o’ black cats. It’s goin’ to take a cute noddle, I s’pect, to keep the boats in the middle o’ the river, an’ precious little rowin’ will be did, ’cept to guide ’em, ’cause we must have complete silence the whole way through. We’ll pass more’n one Injun camp-fire, I make no doubt, an’ who knows but we may run into a nest o’ the skunks on the very island whar we are to stop?”
“Hist! Listen!” exclaimed Mrs. Moreland, at this point in the conversation. “I believe I heard our daughter’s voice.”
The two men paused and listened.
“Thar’s somebody comin’, to a sartainty,” said the ranger, hearing the snapping of twigs occasioned by a footfall in the woods.