Part 2 (1/2)

”Many--many!” cried the Indian, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng. He held up both hands and spread all his ten fingers rapidly seven times. ”Seventy!” cried one of the white men. ”He means seven hundred,” declared the leader. ”That so, Crow Wing, eh?”

The Indian nodded. ”Many white men--many guns,” he said.

”It's not true,” growled one man. ”You can't believe anything an Injin says. Where would the New York sheriff get seven hundred men?”

Crow Wing's eyes flashed and he drew himself up proudly. ”Me no lie--me speak true. Injin not two-tongue like white man!” he declared, with scorn, and turning his back on his traducer, stalked out of the house.

The settlers, however, paid little attention to his departure. Enoch scuttled back to the ridge where 'Siah was waiting to hear the news.

There he lay down beside Lot Breckenridge and the two boys talked earnestly as the men about them smoked or chatted while waiting for the coming of the Yorkers. Seven hundred seemed a great number to oppose.

The odds would be more than two to one. Despite the ambush which had been so carefully laid for them, the sheriff and his men might fight as desperately as the settlers themselves.

”Tell ye what!” whispered Lot to Enoch, ”I ain't fixin' to git shot.

Marm didn't want Uncle Jim to let me come, but he said ev'ry gun'd count this mornin', so she 'lowed I'd hafter. But she says if I git shot she'll larrup me well.”

Enoch chuckled. Although Lot was his senior he was more of a child than young Harding. The experiences of the last few months had aged Enoch a good deal. ”My mother won't whip me if I git shot; but I mustn't run into danger, for she wouldn't know what to do without me,” he said, proudly. ”Bryce ain't much use yet, you know.”

”Zuckers!” exclaimed Lot, ”I wisht my marm was like yourn. I ain't got no father neither; but Uncle Jim don't let me do nothin', an' marm's allus wearin' out a beech twig on me.”

”Guess you do somethin' for it,” said Enoch, wisely.

”She'd do it jest th' same if I didn't,” declared Lot, yet with perfect good-nature, as though the Widow Breckenridge's vigorous applications of the beech wand was a part of existence not to be escaped. ”Gran'pap says I might's well be hung for an ole sheep as a lamb, so in course I do somethin' for it--mostly.”

”If the Yorkers fight we'll hafter stay right here and shoot like the men,” said Nuck, reflectively. ”It'll be like the Injin fights my father and 'Siah were in. I s'pose we'll take trees, an' scatter out so't the Yorkers can't git up around us here----”

”An' we'll raise the warwhoop an' shoot jest as fast as we kin!”

exclaimed Lot, excitedly. ”Crow Wing taught me the warwhoop last year.

An' I know how to scalp, too.”

”Oh, I wouldn't do that!” exclaimed Enoch, in horror.

”Umph! Yorkers ain't no better'n Injins, an' I'd scalp an Injin,”

declared Lot, blood-thirstily.

”I wouldn't. My father never did that, an' he was in the war. He said that was why the Injins warn't no better'n brute-beasts, an' didn't have no souls--'cause they scalped their enemies.”

”Be still there, you youngsters!” growled 'Siah, coming down the line.

”If you want to be men, l'arn to keep yer tongues quiet. Voices carry far on a day like this. What'd they say down ter the house, Nuck, 'bout the signal?”

”When they want help, or want us to sail into 'em, they're goin' to raise a red flag through the chimbley,” replied the boy.

”Wal, I'm hopin' they won't fight,” said the ranger, squinting along the road below the ridge.

”Oh, I wanter see a fight--zuckers, I do!” exclaimed Lot.

”Be still, you bloodthirsty young savage!” commanded 'Siah. ”You wanter shoot down men of your own color, do ye? Beech-sealin' an' duckin' is all right; but it's an awful thing to draw bead on another white man, as ye'll l'arn some day.”

”But you fought the Frenchmen with the Injins,” declared Lot.