"No, mother; I think not to-day. The fact is, I've carried the gun back and forth all winter and never had the least use for it, and it's powerful heavy, especially at night after a hard day's work. I reckon I'm getting lazy," he added, with an attempt to smile.
The mother sighed, knowing well that "laziness" in this case meant weariness; that the lad was doing more than he ought, from a boy's ambition to do a man's work.
"All right," she said, gently; "perhaps it's just as well, though I've half a notion to go along and stand guard myself. Take good care of this boy," she said to John. "I'm afraid he's overworking; you're both so ambitious, just like your father."
"Yes, mother," John replied, cheerily, "but it's hard to hold him back; you see he takes after father and mother both."
At this they all laughed, and the brothers walked away, followed by the gaze of loving eyes till their forms had disappeared among the trees.
At the home clearing the morning passed as usual, with the work of felling trees and piling brush. At noon the two ate their "dinner" of cold johnny-cake and dried venison by the smouldering coals of a brush-heap, whereon they also boiled a pot of water and made "corn coffee."
"We can always work better," John had said, "for a little something hot;" and they sweetened the "coffee" with maple-sugar made by mother and Mary from sap of trees growing near the fort.
After half an hour's rest they cut down a tall tree, which fell northward, as Stephen said, "pointing to the fort." They had trimmed away the limbs, and Stephen was "topping" the tree—that is, cutting off the small end of the trunk to go with the brush for burning. John was measuring off the "cuts," when a large buck sprang into the clearing from the south, and paused with head erect, looking backward.
To John this seemed a joyful opportunity. The men of the settlement had taken little time for hunting during recent weeks, and meat was getting scarce. Very quietly, but quickly, he crept along the log to where his rifle stood leaning against the stump, while Stephen had as quickly dropped from sight behind the brush. The left shoulder of the deer was fairly presented at a distance of only fifty yards, and almost instantly he gave a bound forward and fell dead, shot through the heart.
Laying down the weapon John started to run to the buck, passing near Stephen and saying, "Load the gun, and I'll—" But the look and attitude of his brother made him pause. He was gazing intently, not toward the deer, but in the direction from which it had come. John turned and beheld a startling sight. Stealthily approaching along a little ravine, not far away, were a dozen or more savages in war-paint and feathers.