"Go back there, an' have a look at 'em. In less than an hour we can do the trick in fine style."
Paul and I looked at each other in mingled fear and amazement while one might have counted ten, and then I turned my eyes away, understanding by this time that to gather such information was the only reason why we had come down the river ahead of the volunteers.
Kenton sat like a statue in the center of the canoe, we lads being at either end, and it seemed to me as if a full hour passed before a word was spoken.
Then the night was so near upon us that, save directly in the middle of the river, it was impossible to distinguish objects twenty paces distant.
"I reckon we may as well get to work," and Kenton cautiously forced the canoe out from amid the tangle of foliage until the current carried her down stream.
He did not use the paddle save to keep her from running afoul of dry brush or logs on the bank, and we had drifted two miles, perhaps, when he suddenly bent to his work, sending the light craft across the river at a speed I had never before seen equaled, even by my father.
I fully expected to hear the report of a rifle, or feel the sting of a bullet when we were in the middle of the stream where a sharp-eyed savage might see us; but nothing occurred to check our progress, and in a marvelously short space of time we were once more screened from view; but now on the same side of the river where we knew the painted snakes lurked.
"You are to stay in the dugout," Simon Kenton whispered to me as he raised his rifle. "If it so chances that I'm not back here by sunrise, you must work your way up stream to warn Major Clarke."
Had he given me the opportunity I should have urged that he take us with him, or wait till near morning before undertaking so dangerous a venture; but the words had no more than been spoken when he was gone.
At one instant he was speaking with me, and at the next he had vanished as completely and silently as if the waters had covered him. No Indian who ever lived could have equaled him in swiftness and noiselessness.