Chapter VI. Battle and Storm

It was yet dark, in fact much darker than it had been just after the fog lifted, and the dawn was a full three hours away. Although the flooded area of forest on the western shore was much less than on the eastern, it was sufficient to furnish ample concealment for the boat, and, when they tied up amid dense foliage, they could not see the main stream behind them. Jim Hart laid down his oars, stood up, and carefully cracked his joints.

"I am tired," he said. "Never wuz I so tired afore in my life."

"But, Jim," said Shif'less Sol, "Think what a pow'ful lively naval battle you hey been through. Ef you ever git a wife - which I doubt, 'cause you ain't beautiful, Jim - you kin tell her how once you rowed right over a great Injun warship. Mebbe, Jim, she'll believe all them fancy details you'll stick on to it.

"I know I ain't beautiful," said Long Jim thoughtfully, "an' I don't know ez I want to be, but ef any woman wuz to marry me she'd most likely believe whatever I told her, bein' ez I have a truthful countenance, but ez fur you, Sol, anybody kin tell by lookin' at you that ef you wuz to ketch in this river a little cat-fish six inches long you can tel' them that didn't know that it wuz a whale."

"Seems to me," said Tom Ross, "that I wuz waked up kinder suddin a few hours ago. I wuz in the middle uv a most bee-yu-ti-ful nap, and I know right whar I stopped it. I'm goin' tack an' pick up that nap at the exact place whar I left off."

Without another word he pulled his blanket over him and stretched himself on a seat. In a minute or two he was sound asleep. Tom Ross was a veteran campaigner. He not only knew what to do, but he could and would do it.

"Paul, you and Jim follow him," said Henry, "I'll keep what's left of the watch with Sol."

Jim was treading the easy path of slumber in five minutes, but it took Paul at least ten to pass through the gates. Henry and Sol sat in the boat, silent but watchful.

"We're between two fires," whispered Henry at last. "I don't think that war party will give up just yet, and maybe we'd better stick here in the woods for a while, on the chance that they think we belong to the Spanish force and have rejoined it."

"We've got to stay in hidin' fur a spell, that's shore," said Shif'less Sol. "We might stick here all day. We kin overtake the Spaniards any time, cause we have only one road to foller an' that's the river."

Henry nodded and they settled back to the watch and silence. Their three comrades stretched on seats, lockers, or the boat's bottom, slept soundly, and they could hear their regular breathing. But they heard nothing else save the light lapping of the water against the tree trunks.

Dawn came, golden and beautiful. Tom Ross opened his eyes. "Anything