“Not in the slightest.”
“But now—well—now then——”
In answer I drew from my pocket a map and a compass; the latter mostly for effect, since I knew very well the bed of our river must shape our course for many a mile. On the map I pointed out how, presently, our river would run into a lake, into which, also, ran another river; and would emerge on the other side much larger. I showed them that down that other river, as, indeed, down mine, logs used to float from the pine forests—many of my father’s logs, of ownership said to have been piratical—and I showed how, presently, this stream would carry us into one of the ancient waterways down which millions of wealth in timber have come; and explained about the wild crews of river runners who once ran the rafts down that great highway, and into the greater highway of the Mississippi; whence men might in due time arrive upon the Spanish Main.
“Is there any way a fellow can get across from Lake Michigan into the Mississippi River?” demanded Lafitte, who was of a practical turn of mind: and on the map I showed him all the old trails of the fur traders, explorers and adventurers, French and English, who had discovered our America long ago; whereat their eyes kindled and their tongues went dumb.
At last, I told them we must to our hammocks; and soon our bloody band was deep in sleep. At least, so much might have been said for Lafitte and L’Olonnois. Alone of the band of sea rovers myself, Black Bart, sat musing by the fire, the head of my friend, Partial, in my lap.
CHAPTER VIII
IN WHICH WE HAVE AN ADVENTURE
OUR band of hardy adventurers arose with the sun on the morning following our first night in bivouac, and by noon of that day, thanks, perhaps, in some measure to my own work at the oars, and a sail which we rigged from a corner of the tent, we had passed into and through the lake which our map had showed us. Now we were below the edge of the pine woods, and our stream ran more sluggishly, between banks of cattails or of waving marsh grasses. We put out a trolling line, and took a bass or so; and once Lafitte, firing chance-medley into a passing flock of plover, knocked down a half-dozen, so that we bade fair to have enough for dinner that night. It was all a new world for us. No one might tell what lay around the next bend of our widening waterway. We were explorers. A virgin world lay before us. The nature of the country along the stream kept the settlements back a distance; so that to us, now, in reality, retracing one of the ancient fur-trading routes, we might almost have been the first to break these silences.