In half a moment, Jack's rifle spoke, followed by the loud yelp of a wolf well away from the firelight.
"Uh, huh! You warmed the wax in his ear, that's sart'in;" said Solomon as Jack was reloading. "Did ye hear him say 'Don't'?"
The scout's rifle spoke and another wolf yelped.
"Yer welcome," Solomon shouted. "I slammed that 'er hunk o' lead into the pack leader--a whale of a wolf. The ol' Cap'n stepped right up clus. Seen 'im plain--gray, long legged ol' whelp. He were walkin' towards the fire when he stubbed his toe. It's all over now. They'll snook erway. The army has lost its Gin'ral."
They saw nothing more of the wolf pack and after an hour or so of watching, they put more wood on the fire, filled the opening in their stockade and lay down to rest. Solomon called it a night of "one-eyed sleep" when they got up at daylight and rekindled the fire and washed their hands and faces in the snow. The two dead wolves lay within fifty feet of the fire and Solomon cut off the tail of the larger one for a souvenir.
They had more steak and bread, moistened with tea, for breakfast and set out again with a good store of jerked meat in their packs. So they proceeded on their journey, as sundry faded clippings inform us, spending their nights thereafter at rude inns or in the cabins of settlers until they had passed the village of the Mohawks, where they found only a few old Indians and their squaws and many dogs and young children. The chief and his sachems and warriors and their wives had gone on to the great council fire in the land of Kiodote, the Thorny Tree.
They spent a night in the little cabin tavern of Bill Scott on the upper waters of the Mohawk. Mrs. Scott, a comely woman of twenty-six, had been a sister of Solomon's wife. She and the scout had a pleasant visit about old times in Cherry Valley where they had spent a part of their childhood, and she was most thoughtful and generous in providing for their comfort. The Scotts had lost two children and another, a baby, was lying asleep in the cradle. Scott was a hard working, sullen sort of a man who made his living chiefly by selling rum to the Indians. Solomon used to say that he had been "hooked by the love o' money an' et up by land hunger."
"You'll have to git away from The Long House," Solomon said to Scott. "One reason I come here was to tell ye."
"What makes ye think so?" Scott asked.
"The Injuns'll hug ye when they're drunk but they'll hate ye when they're sober," Solomon answered. "They lay all their trouble to fire-water an' they're right. If the cat jumps the wrong way an' they go on the war-path, ye got to look out."