“No, massa. Oh, look, dat dah!”
Pomp’s loud exclamation was due to the fact that an arrow came flying from a low clump of bushes nearly two hundred yards away, its reed shaft glistening in the ruddy light, and its wings looking as if of fire, till it dropped without a splash into the river, far away from where we sat.
“Now I should like to return their fire,” said my father, “but I am very doubtful about my gun doing any harm at this distance, so we must wait. Pull a little, boy, but very gently, so that they will hardly be able to see that we are doing anything to get away.”
Pomp dipped the oars, and I sat with my heart beating, waiting to see another arrow come, but for quite a minute there was no sign.
“Good practice for one beginning a frontier life, George,” said my father. “Sweep the bank well, and note the smallest movement of a bough. You see there is no wind to move them now.”
“I am watching, father,” I said, “but I cannot see anything.”
“Pomp see lil bit o’ one,” came from behind us.
“Where, boy?”
“Dah by dat big tree. See um arm. Going to shoot.”
Almost as the words left the boy’s lips, an arrow came spinning through the air, describing a good arc, and falling in a direct line with the boat, some twenty yards short.