“Well,” said Frank, “it’s very good of you to look at it that way, Jack, and I hope we’ll come through the trip without any great danger. But just the same I don’t mind admitting that I’ll be pretty well satisfied when it’s over.”
“As such things go,” said Jack, “you ought to be somewhere near the neighborhood of that old French land grant you’re looking for. If my calculations are right, inside a day or so you ought to have it located.”
“Let us hope so,” said Frank, fervently. “Then my trouble will be over.”
But in the dim glow of the masked camp-fire Jack’s face looked somewhat dubious.
“Fact is,” said he, “I think your father made a little mistake when he took that old French grant in payment for a big debt.”
“I hope not,” said Frank, anxiously. “For it’s about all he has now; if it doesn’t turn out fortunately, things will go very badly with him.”
“It’s not so much that I doubt the value of the grant,” said Jack. “But the Creeks claim this whole region; and it would be a hard thing to make good a claim of white ownership, no matter how small the tract. The whole tribe’d be down on you like a landslide before you’d know it.”
“But the government would back me up. The grant is a perfectly honest one; the land was once purchased from the Indians by the French government, which granted it to the man who transferred it to my father. Upon the United States purchasing the control of this territory from Napoleon a few years ago, our government recognized all legitimate claims of this sort; so there should be no real trouble.”
“Maybe not in the courts; but, as I said before, the Creeks will be sure to have a word or two to say.”
As the young Tennesseean spoke, Running Elk, who was reclining upon the ground beside the fire, lifted his head. From across the stillness of the night there came a dull, throbbing sound.