“Wal, wal!” said he, “this here is a surprise! I wasn’t calculatin’ on no visitors. Howdy, Injun,” to Running Elk. “Light, lads, and have a snack and a shake-down for the night.”
Both Bully and Snow, who was a white dog, had subsided at seeing their master so friendly with the newcomers; they now sniffed inquiringly at the horses’ heels and at the boys themselves when they rode up to the log house and alighted. The lads found a place to picket their horses where there was plenty of grass; then they joined the trapper, who was already gathering dried leaves and twigs to start a fire.
“Got some good fresh pickerel,” stated old Joe, “and some bear meat which was killed only yesterday morning. Hope you got some flour in your pack; bread’s mighty scarce with me just now.”
“We’ve got quite a lot of it,” said Frank, who had been introduced to the old backwoodsman and received a hearty hand-grasp from him.
While the fish and strips of bear meat were cooking at one fire and the bread was baking in the ash of another, the two white boys took a plunge into a deep clear pool which was close at hand, and then ran themselves dry in the last glancing barbs of the sun. Then after they had all four done complete justice to the meal, they drew inside the cabin, where old Joe lighted some home-made candles of bear’s grease; settling back upon the skins of bear, deer and catamount which covered the floor, they fell into a conversation which was one of the most interesting in which Frank Lawrence had ever taken part.
The candles flared yellow, lighting up the rough log walls chinked with clay; from the peak of the roof hung dried roots and herbs gathered by the trapper for medicinal use; heaps of pelts were piled up in one corner; others were stretched upon the walls to dry. Upon the door was the skin of a panther which in life must have been a monster; bears’ claws and teeth, traps, fishing-tackle, hatchets, and axes, and an extra gun also hung upon the wall. There was a huge fireplace at one side, built of stones and dried clay. With a little thrill of content, Frank pictured the cabin as it must be in the winter, with a fire of logs roaring up the chimney’s wide throat; all was snow and cold without, the dreary wilderness stretched away on every hand, but, within, the fire-glow gave off a cheer and comfort missing in a more stately dwelling.
“Wal, what brings you younkers so far down this a-way?” questioned the old man. “Never thought to see anybody this summer.”
Jack informed the trapper as to the nature of their errand in the wilderness; the old man, who had resumed the tinkering at the trap which their arrival had interrupted, listened with many nods of the head.
“Some day them there old French grants will be worth a mighty heap of money,” said he at length when the boy had done. “But, in the first place, they’ll have to be powerful well proven; and then it’ll not be until the Creeks is larned a lesson.”
This naturally brought up the subject of the boys’ journey and as Jack related the adventure with the Creeks, and the words of Tecumseh, the ancient woodsman put the trap aside and gave the matter his undivided attention. After the youngster had related all the details, old Joe began to ask questions; and when Jack had answered these at length, there was a silence. The trapper sat bolt upright, his shoulders resting against the wall, and his heavy white brows bent.