On the Trail of Pontiac | Page 4

the almost trackless woods, with here and there a small opening, where the wind had swept the rocks clear of snow. Not a sound broke the stillness.
"Were we ever in this neighborhood before?" questioned Dave, after a silence of several minutes.
"Yes, I was up here three or four years ago," answered his cousin, who, as my old readers know, was a natural-born hunter and woodsman. "Got a deer right over yonder." And he pointed with his hand. "The one I hit plumb in the left eye."
"Oh, yes, I remember that," came from Dave. "It was a prime shot. Wish I could do as well sometime."
"You needn't complain, Dave. You've done better than lots of men around here. Some of 'em can't shoot anything at all. They are farmers and nothing else."
"Well, we'll all have to turn farmers sooner or later--after the best of the game is killed off."
"Has your father said anything about going out to his trading-post on the Kinotah again?"
"Nothing more than what you heard him say on New Year's day--that he would go as soon as the weather got warm enough, and it was considered safe."
"I wish I could go out with you. I really believe I could make some money, bringing in pelts,--more money than I can make by staying here."
"Perhaps you could, Henry, and, oh, I wish you could go!" went on Dave impulsively. "Wouldn't we have the best times, though!"
"The trouble is father wants me on the farm. There is so much to do, you see. While the war was on everything went to pieces."
"But Rodney can help now. He told me only yesterday that he felt strong enough to do almost anything."
"Yes, I've thought of that. If he can take hold, perhaps I can get father to consent. Did you say Sam Barringford was going?"
"To be sure. And so is White Buffalo. I suppose father will take not less than a dozen hunters and trappers with him and six or eight Indians, too. He says he doesn't want to depend altogether on strangers when he gets out there, and he hardly knows what has become of the most of those who were with him before."
"More than half of the crowd are dead, shot down either in the trouble with the redskins or in the war."
"I've been wondering if there is anything left of the trading-post. Father has half a notion that the Indians burnt it to the ground, and burnt the forest around it, too. If they have done that, he won't want to build again on the burn-over, but at some new spot where the forest hasn't been touched and timber is easy to get."
"Do you suppose they burnt the post Jean Bevoir had?"
"I reckon not. The Indians were very friendly with that rascal."
The youths had now come to the edge of the woods. Here was a well-defined trail, running from Will's Creek to a hamlet knows as Shadd's Run, named after an old Englishman who had settled there six years previous. Shadd and his family had been massacred by the Indians at the time of Braddock's defeat, and all that was left of his commodious log cabin was a heap of half-burnt logs.
Turning into the trail, the young hunters continued on their way to the Morris homestead. This itself was a new building, for the first cabin had also gone up in flames during the terrible uprising. On either side of the road were patches of woods, with here and there a cleared field. Soon they came in sight of a log cabin.
"Hullo, Neighbor Thompson!" sang out Henry, and in a moment a man appeared at the door of the house, musket in hand.
"So you've got back," said the man, and lowered his weapon. "What luck?"
"Two wild turkeys and seven rabbits," answered Henry. He reached into his game-bag. "Here are the two rabbits I promised you for the powder." And he handed over the game.
"Thank you, Henry, they'll make a fine pot-pie. Didn't see any deer?"
"No."
"Thought not. Will you come in and warm up?"
"I'm not cold."
"Nor am I," put in Dave.
Paul Thompson had been followed to the doorway by his wife Sarah, and the pair asked the two young hunters how matters were faring at home.
"We feel lonely here," said Mrs. Thompson. "In Philadelphia we had so much company."
"You must come over to our house more," answered Henry. "Mother, I know, will be glad to see you."
The Thompsons had come to that neighborhood the summer before, taking up a claim of land left by a near relative who had died. Both were young, and the husband had thought to improve his condition by turning farmer rather than by remaining a clerk in one of the Philadelphia shops. But the loneliness of the life was something neither had counted on, and both