"We're about thirty miles below Wilkesbarre, now," said Barnabas, as the journey was resumed after breakfast, "an' it's a good twenty miles yet to the main river, where we'll strike deep water an' the shelter of the lower forts. If I thought the wadin' and haulin' was to last another day I'd suggest we take to footin' it on shore."
"It would be a wise plan," agreed Godfrey. "At the speed we've been making, a force of Tories and Indians could have overhauled us twice over, and they may do it yet. You don't know Simon Glass."
"Don't I?" Barnabas interrupted grimly. "I reckon I do. But honestly, lad, I believe he's given up the chase. It's best to take precautions though, an' that's why I spoke of walkin'."
"It won't be easy for me," declared Proud, shaking his head. "I've got a sprained ankle."
"And my little gal, who ain't no light weight, would have to be carried," added Cutbush.
"I've been down the river twice before," said Nathan, "and I'm pretty sure that the lower part of the North Branch is deeper than up here."
Several others suddenly remembered the same fact, from past experience, and so it was decided to stick to the flat. Godfrey alone favored a land journey, and he could not hide his apprehension at the choice. "If they knew Simon Glass as I do," he said to himself, "they wouldn't lose any time in getting below the forts."
However, after three hours' repetition of the previous day's labors, the channel actually did become deeper and less obstructed. In consequence the current was more sluggish, but the flat drifted steadily on for mile after mile, and there was a fair prospect of reaching the main river that evening.
Early in the afternoon a magnificent buck with large antlers burst out of the woods on the south bank, about a quarter of a mile below, plunged precipitately into the water, and swam for the opposite shore.
"Something scared it," said Nathan.