“I know,” said Mark, “we must make a fire, and burn the tree; we are savages, you know, and that is how they do it.”
“How silly you are!” said Bevis. “We are not savages, and I shall not play at that. We have just discovered this river, and we are going down it on our raft; and if we do not reach some place to-night and build a fort, very likely the savages will shoot us. I believe I heard one shouting just now; there was something rustled, I am sure, in the forest.”
He pointed at the thick double-mound hedge about a hundred yards distant.
“What river is it?” said Mark. “Is it the Amazon, or the Congo, or the Yellow River, or the Nile—”
“It is the Mississippi, of course,” said Bevis, quite decided and at ease as to that point. “Can’t you see that piece of weed there. My papa says that weed came from America, so I am sure it is the Mississippi, and nobody has ever floated down it before, and there’s no one that can read within a thousand miles.”
“Then what shall we do?”
“O, there’s always something you can do. If we could only get a beaver now to nibble through it. There’s always something you can do. I know,” and Bevis jumped up delighted at his idea, “we can bore a hole, and blow it up with gunpowder!”
“Lot us fetch an auger,” said Mark. “The gimlet is not big enough.”
“Be quick,” said Bevis. “Run back to the settlement, and get the auger; I will mind the raft and keep off the savages; and, I say, bring a spear and the cutlass; and—I say—”
But Mark was too far, and in too much of a hurry to hear a word. Bevis, tired of chopping, rolled over on his back on the grass, looking up at the sky. The buttercups rose high above his head, the wind blew and cooled his heated forehead, and a humble-bee hummed along: borne by the breeze from the grass there came the sweet scent of green things growing in the sunshine. Far up he saw the swallows climbing in the air; they climbed a good way almost straight up, and then suddenly came slanting down again.