CHAPTER XV
A HUNT FOR FRESH MEAT
“I feel just wild for fresh meat, and I mean to ask father if we can take a little hunt this very afternoon,” said Sandy, two days later, while the flatboat was speeding quite merrily down the current.
“Well,” remarked his brother, “I would like a chance to get ashore and stretch my legs, just as much as you do. And I hope he says yes, when you ask him. Fish is pretty good, but a fellow gets tired of it as a regular thing, and I don’t think that is the finest kind of fish either, that we get. Why, when you took in that slippery mudcat, and we had it for dinner, it tasted better to me.”
“We haven’t seen a solitary sign of Indians since they tried to get us to come in to the shore,” Sandy went on. “And that must have been Girty, himself, who rumpled up his hair, and tried to look so hard pushed. You remember we saw him that time after we got ashore, when our boat was smashed, and when Blue Jacket told that Miami chief, Little Turtle, why he stood up for the Armstrong boys. But I’ll come back and let you know what father says.”
Ten minutes later he approached Bob again.
“You needn’t say a single word,” remarked the other, “for I can tell by the look on your face that it’s all right.”
“Yes, he says that we have been making such good time we can afford to lose an afternoon, or part of one, in order to try to get some fresh meat, because we all feel the need of it. So, before the sun is more than half-way down the sky, he will give orders for the boat to be tied up, if everything looks safe, just like it is right now.”
“I’m glad of that,” declared Bob; “because, after being used to walking nearly every day, for miles and miles, it comes pretty hard to just sit here, push a sweep, or tramp up and down around the cabin.”