Again Elizabeth nodded.
“Maybe he Jake?” pursued the Indian.
“Yes, he is. We don't want you.”
“We cross you all same. He not.”
The Indian spoke loud and thick, and Elizabeth looked over the river where her husband was running with a rifle, and Jake behind him, holding a warning hand on his arm. Jake called across to the Indians, who listened sullenly, but got on their horses and went up the river.
“Now,” said Jake to Clallam, “they ain't gone. Get your wife over here so she kin set in my room till I see what kin be done.”
John left him at once, and crossed on the raft. His wife was stepping on it, when the noise and flight of riders descended along the other bank, where Jake was waiting. They went in a circle, with hoarse shouts, round the cabin as Mart with Nancy came from the pasture. The boy no sooner saw them than he caught his sister up and carried her quickly away among the corrals and sheds, where the two went out of sight.
“You stay here, Liza,” her husband said. “I'll go back over.”
But Mrs. Clallam laughed.
“Get ashore,” he cried to her. “Quick!”