“You may bet your boots on that,” said Harrod, dryly. “I hain’t no objections to tacklin’ Old Nick, ef I know whar I’m goin’; but I ain’t to be fooled with secret orders by no George Clark, when I c’u’d turn him over my knee and spank him.”
Daniel Boone turned his quiet blue eyes on Harrod, saying:
“Ain’t you a little hard on Colonel Clark, Billy? He ain’t asked you to go on a wild-goose chase yet. I know you’re a good man of your hands, Billy, but Clark’s no boy. Wait till he tells us where we are to go, before you get mad. He holds the State commission, remember, to order us all.”
Harrod shook his head sulkily.
“He’s a good sodger, Dan’l, no discount on that; but I don’t like these hyar secret orders. Why don’t he come out and tell us whar he’s goin’ like a man?”
“Because there are spies round, Billy,” said Boone, boldly. “Who knows but what the British General at Detroit would hear all about his doings, if he divided the secret with a lot of fellows like them?” indicating the camp with a scornful gesture; “so full of whisky—when they can get it, that a child might suck them dry.”
“There are reason in cunnel’s words, Billy,” said Kenton, quietly. “Leastwise there ain’t no use talkin’, till Cunnel Clark comes. See, the head boat’s landin’ on Corn Island, and I guess we’ll hev to foller them into camp there.”
In fact, at this moment, Clark’s boats put in to an island that lay in the center of the river, and proceeded to disembark their crews, in sight of the Kentuckians.
Shortly after, a bark canoe shot out from the island, crossed the shallow belt of water that separated it from the south bank, and landed the same little officer already referred to as Adjutant Frank.
This smart little officer came strutting up to Big Bill Harrod, with a slender rapier clanking at his heels, and asked: