“Me and them, ye see, ma'am, we hev a sort of bargain they're to git certain ferryin'. I can't make 'em savvy how I took charge of you. If you want them—” He paused.
“We want them!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “If you're joking, it's a poor joke.”
“It ain't no joke at all, ma'am.” Jake's face grew brooding. “Of course folks kin say who they'll be ferried by. And you may believe I'd rather do it. I didn't look for jest this complication; but maybe I kin steer through; and it's myself I've got to thank. Of course, if them Siwashes did git your job, they'd sober up gittin' ready. And—”
The emigrants waited, but he did not go on with what was in his mind. “It's all right,” said he, in a brisk tone. “Whatever's a-comin's a-comin'.” He turned abruptly towards the door. “Keep yerselves away jest now,” he added, and went inside.
The parents sought their children, finding Mart had concealed Nancy in the haystack. They put Mrs. Clallam also in a protected place, as a loud altercation seemed to be rising at the cabin; this grew as they listened, and Jake's squaw came running to hide herself. She could tell them nothing, nor make them understand more than they knew; but she touched John's rifle, signing to know if it were loaded, and was greatly relieved when he showed her the magazine full of cartridges. The quarrelling had fallen silent, but rose in a new gust of fierceness, sounding as if in the open air and coming their way. No Indian appeared, however, and the noise passed to the river, where the emigrants soon could hear wood being split in pieces.
John risked a survey. “It's the raft,” he said. “They're smashing it. Now they're going back. Stay with the children, Liza.”
“You're never going to that cabin?” she said.
“He's in a scrape, mother.”
John started away, heedless of his wife's despair. At his coming the Indians shouted and surrounded him, while he heard Jake say, “Drop your gun and drink with them.”
“Drink!” said Andy, laughing with the same screech he had made at the match going out. “We re all going to Canaan, Connecticut.”