"Right, ain't I?"

"Yes, right, ain't you, 'bout the food, an' wrong in everythin' else. Ef you say 'ain't' to me ag'in, Tom Ross, inside o' a week, I'll club you so hard over the head with your own gun that you won't be able to speak another word fur a year! The idee o' you laughin' an' me plum' dead with hunger! Why, I could eat a hull big buffler by myself, an' ef he wuzn't cooked I could eat him alive, an' on the hoof too, so I could!"

Tom Ross continued to laugh silently with his eyes and lips.

"What are we to do?" asked Paul in dismay. "If we were to find game we wouldn't dare fire at it with the Indians perhaps so near."

"True," said Tom Ross.

"And if we can't fire at it we certainly can't catch it with our hands."

"True," said Tom Ross.

"And then are we to starve to death?"

"No," said Tom Ross.

Paul did not ask anything more, but his questioning look was on the silent man.

"Fish," said Tom Ross, showing his line and hook.

"Where?" asked Shif'less Sol.

"Fine, clear creek, only hundred yards away."

"Do you know that it hez any fish in it?"

"Saw 'em little while ago. Fine big fellers, ba.s.s."

"Then be quick an' ketch a lot, 'cause the pangs o' starvation are already on me."

Tom Ross cut the slim pole that he had already picked out and measured with his eye, took squirming bait from the soft earth under a stone, just as millions of boys in the Mississippi valley have done, and started for the creek, Paul being delegated to accompany him, while Henry, Long Jim and the shiftless one proceeded to build a fire in the most secluded spot they could find. There was danger in a fire, but they could shield the smoke, or at least most of it, and the risk must be taken anyhow. They could not eat raw the fish which they did not doubt for a moment Tom Ross would soon bring.

Meanwhile Paul and Tom reached the banks of the creek, which was all the silent one had claimed for it, fifteen feet wide, two feet deep, clear water, flowing over a pebbly bottom. Tom tied his string to the pole, and threw in the hook and bait.

"You watch, I fish," he said.

Paul, his rifle in the crook of his arm, strolled a little bit down the stream, examining the forest and listening attentively for any hostile sound. Since it was his business to protect the fisherman while he fished, he meant to protect him well, and no enemy could have come near without being observed by him. And yet he had enough detachment from the dangers of their situation to drink deep in the beauty of the wilderness, which was here a tangle of green forest, shot with wild flowers and cut by clear running waters.

But he did not go so far that he failed to hear a thump where Tom Ross was sitting, and he knew that a fine fish had been landed. Presently a second thump came to his ear, and, glancing through the bushes, he saw Tom taking the fish off the hook, a look of intense satisfaction on his face. Then the silent fisherman threw in the line again and leaned back luxuriously against the trunk of a tree, while he waited for his third bite. Paul smiled. He knew that Silent Tom was happy, happy because he had prepared for and was achieving a necessary task.

Paul went on in a circuit about the fisherman, crossing the creek lower down, where it was narrower, on a fallen log, and discovered no sign of a foe, though he did come to a bed of wild flowers, the delicate pale blue of which pleased him so much that he broke off two blossoms and thrust them into his deerskin tunic. Then he came back to Silent Tom, to find that he had caught four fine large fish, and, having thrown away his pole, was winding up his line.

"'Nuff," said the silent one.

"I think so, too," said Paul, "and now we'll hurry back with 'em."

"Look like a flower garden, you!"

"If I do I'm glad of it."

"Like it myself."

"I know you do, Tom. I know that however you may appear, and that however fierce and warlike you may be at times, your character rests upon a solid bedrock of poetry."

Tom stared and then smiled, and by this time the two had returned with their spoils to a little valley in which a little fire was burning, with the blaze smothered already, but a fine bed of coals left. The fish were cleaned with amazing quickness, and then Long Jim broiled them in a manner fit for kings. The five ate hungrily, but with due regard for manners.

"You're a good fisherman, Tom Ross," said Shif'less Sol, "but it ought to be my job."

"Why?"

"'Cause it's the job o' a lazy man. I reckon that all fishermen, leastways them that fish in creeks an' rivers, are lazy, nothin' to do but set still an' doze till a fish comes along an' hooks hisself on to your bait. Then you jest hev to heave him in an' put the hook back in the water ag'in."

"There's enough of the fish left for another meal," said Henry, "and I think we'd better put it in our packs and be off."

"You still favor a retreat into the north?" said Paul.

"Yes, and toward the northeast, too. We'll go in the direction of Piqua and Chillicothe, their big towns. As we've concluded over and over again, the offensive is the best defensive, and we'll push it to the utmost. What's your opinion, Sol? Who do you think will be the next leader to come against us?"

"Red Eagle an' the Shawnees. I'm thinkin' they're curvin' out now to trap us, an' that Red Eagle is a mighty crafty fellow."

They trod out the coals, threw some dead leaves over them, and took a course toward the northeast. It seemed pretty safe to a.s.sume that the ring of warriors was thickest in the south, and that they might slip through in the north. Time and distance were of little importance to them, and they felt able to find their rations as they went in the forest.

They had been traveling about an hour at the easy walk of the border, when they heard a long cry behind them.

"They've found the dead coals o' our fire," said Shif'less Sol.

"Which means that they're not so far away," said Paul.

"But we've been comin' over rocky ground, an' the trail ain't picked up so easy. An' we might make it a lot harder by wadin' a while up this branch."

The brook fortunately led in the direction in which they wished to go.

They walked in it a full half mile, and as it had a sandy bottom their footprints vanished almost at once. When they emerged at last they heard the long cry again, now from a point toward the east, and then a distant answer from a point in the west. Shif'less Sol laughed with intense enjoyment.

"Guessin'! Jest guessin'!" he said. "They've found the dead coals an'

they know that we wuz thar once, but that now we ain't, an' it's not whar we wuz but whar we ain't that's botherin' 'em."

"Still," said Paul, "the more distance we put between them and us the better I, for one, will like it."

"You're right, Paul," said Shif'less Sol. "I guess we'd better shake our feet to a lively tune."

They increased their walk to a trot, and fled through the great forest.

CHAPTER VI

THE OASIS