The two confused boys looked at each other rather whimsically. They knew they could refuse their mother nothing. And perhaps, too, at that moment they realized the utter folly of the course they had mapped out.
So they promised, and, with an arm about the waist of each, she accompanied them back to the cabin.
The balance of that day passed slowly. Every one was uneasy save possibly Pat O'Mara, whose jolly disposition could never be cast down. And that evening, after supper, as they gathered around the blazing fire, he exerted himself as never before to sway the minds of these good friends.
The boys sat there on the bench that stood against the wall, and listened with wide-open ears when by degrees the trapper came around to the entrancing subject of that magical country whose beauties he seemed never to tire of telling. David Armstrong and his wife harkened also, but said little, leaving it to Bob and his brother to ask questions.
It was a cozy picture. The flames darted up the wide-throated chimney and took the place of the customary candle in lighting the room, glancing from the walls, where the chinks between the roughly hewn logs had been filled with hardened clay, and then whitewashed.
Herbs hung from the rafters overhead. High up alongside the chimney several packages of the dried venison Sandy disliked so much had their places. The shiny brass kettle, an heirloom in the family, stood upon the hob near the flames, and occasionally sang a low accompaniment to the trapper's enticing tales.
Would the new country offer them as comfortable a home as this? After all, so long as the mother were spared, it must ever be her deft hand that made home what it was; and no matter whether here in Virginia, or far off on the banks of the storied Ohio, it would be the same.
"But how about the Indians, Pat?" asked Sandy finally. "You have told us little of the red men. Are they disposed to be friendly; or would we have to fight whenever we ran across them?"
"That is the only darrk spot to the picture, me byes," returned the trapper, with a sigh. "Sorry am I to say the same, but the rid divels are all for makin' throuble. But 'tis numbers that may hould thim in check. Troth, if enough whites iver r'ach the shore of that enchantin' river, they kin bid the Injuns defiance. In union there is strength, ye know, Sandy, bye. 'Tis thim same rid divils that gives me pain in me hearrt."
To the boys, however, this was not so serious a drawback. In common with most young fellows of the day they had a contempt for the valor of the native sons of the forest. It was not so with the gentle mother; and her eyes involuntarily sought those of her husband, while she shivered at the thought of the loneliness that must encompass pilgrims who emigrated beyond the mountain chain, losing themselves in the untracked wilderness.