“But, Bob, what if we keep on floating all night? We will be chilled to the marrow with this cold wind, and the rain that promises to fall. Besides, when the dawn breaks, we will find ourselves many miles down the river. And what would mother think?”
“Well, I’ve got a plan in my mind that might help us,” the other went on. “We don’t want to lose our guns, to begin with; and, once we took to the water in that way, how could we hold on to them? So here’s what I was thinking. Let us fasten the guns, and our clothes, as far as we can, to this log. I always carry some buckskin thongs in the pocket of my tunic, and there are knobs here and there, where branches have been broken off.”
Sandy broke out laughing.
“But, what good would that do us?” he demanded. “If ever we did get ashore, think how cold we should be, and likely to starve to death. I think I’d rather take my chances sitting right here, than try that.”
“But you don’t understand the whole of the plan yet, Sandy,” the other went on, steadily, for he was quite used to having his impatient brother break in upon him in this way.
“Oh! if there is more of it, I’m glad to hear it,” Sandy remarked. “After we’ve tied our guns, and part of our clothes, to the log, what do we expect to do then, Bob—fly away to the shore away over yonder? We might,—if only we had wings!”
“Listen, then,” Bob pursued. “We’ll slip down into the water, and, one on either side of the log, start steering it in the direction of land. Do you understand now, brother?”
Sandy gave a shout, for he was always enthusiastic, once he discovered any reason for being so.
“It is a great idea, Bob,” he said, warmly. “And I never would have thought it out in an hour. Just as you say, we can, by slow stages, push the log ashore. Even if it is miles below the settlement, we will have our clothes with us, and tinder bags to start a fire with. But why, do you think, did no one answer our shouts back there?”
“In the first place,” replied Bob, who was beginning to fumble around, in a hunt for the best nubbin of a broken branch, to which he might secure his valuables, consisting of his precious musket, powder horn, bullet pouch, tinder bag, and last, if not least of all, his clothes, which the loving fingers of their mother had fashioned out of pliable deerskin; “in the first place, we must have been some distance below the settlement at the time of our accident.”