“But what are a few inches, when we will have to wait until it goes down six or more feet?” grumbled Sandy; but nothing was to be gained by complaining, and finally the boys concluded to camp right there on the bank, where they could keep watch through the night, so that no one might pass out to the cabin without being seen in the light of the fire they would keep burning.
And this was what they did. One slept while the other stood sentry, always keeping an eye on the cabin.
The river went down very fast during the hours of darkness; and there came no fresh alarm to stir the tired souls from slumber. So another morning found them; and the first thing Sandy noticed was that the cabin stood free from the flood at last, though in the midst of a wrecked garden.
“We can enter now!” he exclaimed to his brother.
They took off their moccasins, and waded through the pools of mud that lay in place of the garden spot of a few days before.
It required considerable force to push open the door, because the water had swollen the wood; but by putting their shoulders to the task in unison the boys finally managed to swing it inward.
Then they entered, and looked around, holding their very breath in an agony of suspense. The cabin had several inches of mud on the floor, and its appearance would have struck dismay to the heart of the neat housewife, had she seen it just then. But Bob and Sandy were not thinking of this. They let their eyes roam all around the room, seeking a sign of the well-remembered little box in which their mother kept those small articles she prized; and which had also been the receptacle in which the wampum belt had last reposed.
But only blankness met their view.
The little box was surely gone; and if, as they suspected, those bold intruders had been the French trappers, Jacques and Henri, then it was apparent that finally the fortunes of war had placed them in possession of the article which they would prize more highly than almost anything else that could be found—the belt decorated with the little shells, and known as wampum, which was marked with the signet of the great war chief and sachem, Pontiac, and would protect its possessor against the fury of the confederated red men of the wilderness.