“What is it, Henry?” asked Shif’less Sol, who had noticed the change.
“We’ve been along here before,” replied the great youth. “I know the shores now, and it’s mighty lucky for us that we are just where we are.”
The shiftless one looked at the northern, then at the southern forest, and shook his head.
“I don’t ’pear to recall it,” he said. “The woods, at this distance away, look like any other woods at night, black an’ mighty nigh solid.”
“It’s not so much the forest, because, like you, I couldn’t tell it from any other, as it is the curve of the river. I thought I saw something familiar in it a little while ago, and now I know by the sound that I’m right.”
“Sound! What sound?”
“Turn your ears down the river and listen as hard as you can. After a while you’ll hear a faint humming.”
“So I do, Henry, but I wouldn’t hev noticed it ef you hadn’t told me about it, an’ even ef I do hear it I don’t know what it means.”
“It’s made by the rush of a great volume of water, Sol. It’s the Falls of the Ohio, that not many white men have yet seen, a gradual sort of fall, one that boats can go over without trouble most of the time, but which, owing to the state of the river, are just now at their highest.”
“An’ you mean fur them falls to come in between us an’ the big canoes? You’re reckonin’ on water to save us?”