“I’m glad that bear didn’t get a scent of our fish while he was hurrying home,” Dick remarked.
“That’s so,” the other boy added, “because we happen to know how hungry they are for fish, lots of times. Didn’t we see one scoop a fish out with his paw, once, as he squatted on a log that ran down into the water? But are we going to risk it out there on the river just yet, Dick?”
“It looks pretty rough, I declare; but the waves are going down every minute, so we had better wait a while. Given half an hour, and we ought to be able to cross. The longer we can hold off, the easier our passage will be.”
“I suppose it’s no use throwing out a line again?” mused Roger, whose passion for fishing could never be wholly satisfied.
“Not after such a heavy rain, and with the river rising as it is, Roger. You know enough about fish to remember that they never bite after a rain that washes all sorts of feed into the river, and muddies the water so. Here, we can sit down on this rock, and talk a little.”
“Yes, and Dick, I know that you have something on your mind that’s been worrying you all day. More than once I’ve come near asking what ailed you, and then I held my tongue for fear I might offend. And at our house I notice that father and mother seem worried, too, for they often stop talking when I come in, and look confused, as if they didn’t want me to know what was wrong. Now, if you know, tell me. We’re pretty well grown, and ought to take some of the burdens on our shoulders, it seems to me.”
“Well spoken, Roger, and shake hands with me on that!” exclaimed the older lad, while his sober face lighted up with a mingling of regard for his cousin, and delight over hearing these words spring from his heart. “Yes, you are right, we are old enough to be taken into the councils of our parents; and my father has thought the same, for he told me the nature of the gloom that seems to be hanging over the whole little Armstrong settlement of late.”
“And will you tell me, Dick?” demanded the other, eagerly, while a look akin to resolution flashed over his handsome face. Roger was his father in his younger years over again; a real “chip of the old block,” gentle-hearted, brave, and with only the fault of recklessness to mar his good record.
Sandy Armstrong in early life had taken as his model that sterling young borderer known in the history of the “dark and bloody ground,” Kentucky, as Daniel Boone’s most beloved helper, Simon Kenton; and, as their natures were very much alike, the reason for his admiration had always been very evident.
“Yes,” Dick went on to say, bravely, “because my father said he thought both of us should know; not that he had any idea we could do anything to help; but, if the blow fell, we might be better prepared to stand it.”