George Cary Eggleston

“ Seeing the perilous position of the fort people, he raised himself in his stirrups and waving his hat, charged the savages with his pack of dogs, whooping and yelling after the manner of a huntsman, and leading the fierce bloodhounds right into the ranks of the infuriated Indians. The dogs being trained to chase and seize any living thing upon which their master might set them, attacked the Indians furiously, Harden encouraging them and riding down group after group of the bewildered savages. ”

“ Tom tore it, and the blood stopped almost immediately. Sam then bound the foot up with strips of cloth torn from his clothing, and as he did so said:
"Now I'll tell you both all about this so that you'll know what to do another time. If you know only what to do, you may forget; but if you know why, you'll remember. The blood comes out from the heart to all parts of the body in arteries, and when it leaves the heart it is bright red, because it is clean and pure. Your heart is a sort of force-pump, and every time it beats it forces the blood all over you. ”

“ Joe, with the true negro genius for sleeping, was already snoring at the foot of a tree. Sam quietly called Tom to his side.
"Tom," said he, "my foot is bleeding pretty badly, and I can't see till morning to do anything for it. I have wrapped it up in moss, stuffing the softest parts into the wound, and that may stop it after a while. But I may not be able to travel to-morrow night, and if I can't you must leave me here and try to find your way to Fort Glass, with Judie. You must remember that her life will depend on you, and try to do your duty without flinching. ”

“ They crouched down together and kept silence.
"What's we gwine to do here, I wonder," whispered the black boy. "Whar mus' we go, Mas Sam?"
Sam did not answer. He was too much absorbed in studying the situation to talk or even to listen. The Indians were coming down upon the white people from every side, and the only wonder was that Sam's little party had managed to find a gap in their line big enough to escape through.
"Be patient, Joe," said little Judie, in the calmest voice possible. "Brother Sam will take care of us. Give him time. He always does know what to do." ”

“ A boy has learned the very best lesson of his life when he knows that he really does not know much; it is a lesson some people never learn at all. But books were not the only things Sam Hardwicke was familiar with. He could ride the worst horses in the country and shoot a rifle almost as well as Tandy Walker himself, and Tandy, as every reader of history knows, was the most famous rifleman, as well as the best guide and most daring scout in the whole south-west. ”

“ They were just on the point of starting when a party of Indians, under Weatherford, the great half-breed chief, who was the life and soul of the war, rode across a neighboring field, and settled themselves for supper within a dozen yards of Sam's camp. The sky was overcast with clouds, and so night fell even more quickly than it usually does in Southern latitudes, where there is almost no twilight at all. Sam made his companions lie down at the approach of the savages, and as soon as it was fairly dark, the little party crept silently away. ”

“ The next morning Judie was the first to wake, and she quietly waked Tom and Joe.
"Boys, boys," she cried in a whisper, "the Indians are all around us, there is a fight going on. Get up quick, but don't make any noise."
The little girl was right. Rifles were cracking and Indians yelling all around their little habitation. It at once occurred to Tom that here was hope as well as danger. If the Indians should be driven back by the whites, he could communicate with the latter and the little garrison of the root fortress would be rescued. ”

“ Knowing the Indians' skill in shooting while riding at full speed, Sam leaned as far as he could to one side, so that as little as possible of his person should be exposed to his pursuer's aim. He continued to press his horse too, but the savage gained steadily. Finding at last that he must shortly be overtaken, Sam resolved upon a bold manœuvre, by which to kill his foremost pursuer. Seizing the hatchet he had brought away from the house, he suddenly stopped his horse, and, as the Indian came along-side, aimed a savage blow at his head. ”

“ We are beginning now to be hungry enough to eat anything, and when people get that hungry there are a good many things that can be eaten. I'll tell you what we must do, Tom—"
But what it was that Sam had hit upon, Tom never knew. Just as this point in the conversation was reached Joe came running in through the alley-way, his face flattened out into a broad grin of delight, his teeth and eyes shining, while he danced all over the fortress, shaking hands over and over again, and saying,
"Hi! Miss Judie! Hi! Mas' Tom! Hi! Mas' Sam! How does ye all do now? Did you think Joe had runned away? ”

“ When Sam went over the cliff, he thought of poor little Judie, and Tom and Joe, and, for their sake more than his own, took every precaution which might give him an additional chance of life. He knew that he should fall into the creek, and that the blow, when he struck the water, would be a very severe one. If he could keep his horse under him all the way, however, the animal and not he would be the chief sufferer. ”

“ Nearly half our blunders, all through life, might be avoided if we would think carefully before acting; and nearly half the useful things we know, have been found out simply by somebody's thinking. Sam sat down on a log and said to himself;—
"Now if there is anything in the woods which always or nearly always points in any one direction, I can find it by looking. Then I can find out which way it points, by remembering how the woods look around home, where I know the points of the compass." ”

“ The days seemed very long to Tom and Joe and little Judie after Sam left on his journey. They had nothing to do but to sit still in their corners among the roots all day, and time always drags very slowly when people are doing nothing. Their provisions, as we know, were already cooked,—enough of them at least, to last a week, and before Sam left he had made them bring more than a bushel of sweet potatoes and all the corn they could find which was still soft enough to eat, and store it away for use if his return should be delayed in any way. ”

“ The boys rarely ever left the trees during the daytime, and when they did so they were careful first to satisfy themselves that there were no savages in the neighborhood. The creek, of which Joe spoke, emptied into the river a short distance above the root fortress, and, along its banks was a dense mass of undergrowth, which skirted the river below, all the way to the drift-pile. Joe had seen the grapes from the look-out, and had planned an excursion after them. ”

“ She was always delighted to do anything for Sam, and now that she was uneasy about him, and kept thinking of him as dead or dying or sick somewhere, and could hardly keep her tears back, nothing could have pleased her so well as to work for his comfort. Tom and Joe went out after dark, and brought in a large lot of moss, and the next morning all went to work, Judie made very little progress with her scraping, but she kept steadily at it, and it served its purpose in making her less miserable than before. ”

“ The trees grow as close together as they can, and the underbrush chokes up the space between them pretty effectually. Then the great vines of various kinds wind themselves in and out until in many places they literally stop the way so that a strong man with an axe could not go forward a hundred feet in a week. In other places the thick cane makes an equally impenetrable barrier, and Sam needed all his knowledge of the forest to enable him to work his way southward at night through such woods as those. ”

“ If a log floats with just half of itself above water, you know that the log weighs exactly the same as half its own bulk of water, or, in other words, that its specific gravity is just half that of water. Water two inches deep won't float a great saw-log, because a great saw-log weighs more than the amount of water it takes to cover its lower part two or three inches deep; and water two or three feet deep won't float a drift-pile twenty feet high, because such a drift-pile weighs a good deal more than a body of water two or three feet deep, of its own length and width. ”

“ Austill then rose, and snatching a war club from one of the Indians used that instead of his rifle. Eight of the savages were slain, and Dale found himself face to face with the solitary survivor, whom he recognized as a young Muscogee with whom he had been for years on terms of the most intimate friendship, and whom he loved, as he declared, almost as a brother. He lowered his up-raised rifle to spare his friend, but the savage would not accept quarter. He cried out in the Creek language, which Dale understood as well as he did English.
"Big Sam, you are a man, and I am another! ”

“ He became very rich himself, and, despite his savage instincts, which were always strong, his wealth, in land and slaves, made him a conservative. At first he favored a war with the whites, but a calmer afterthought led him to desire peace, and when he found that the tempest he had helped to stir up would not subside at his bidding, he began casting about for a way of escape. ”

“ A fine large opossum had taken refuge in one of the upper branches, and Sam used his rifle to good purpose in bringing him down. He was still suffering somewhat from the fever, though the excitement of his recent ride had done much to relieve him, as anything which occupies one's mind is apt to do in fevers of that sort, but he was nevertheless extremely hungry, not having tasted food of any kind for nearly two days, and having previously lived for a long time, as we know, upon an insufficient and not very wholesome diet. He was delighted therefore to get a fat young opossum for breakfast. ”

“ Let's understand each other. If the one on the look-out sees Indians, he must let the others know; but it won't do to holler. Let me see. Can you whistle like a kildee, Tom?"
"Yes, or like any other bird."
"Can you, Joe?"
"I reckon I kin, Mas' Sam," said Joe, who, to prove his powers straightway gave a shrill kildee whistle, which nearly deafened them all.
"There, that'll do, Joe. Well, let's understand then, that if anyone of us sees Indians, he must whistle like a kildee. If the Indians hear it they'll think nothing of it." ”

“ His wounded foot got better, though it was still far from well, and, better than all, his fever left him. As he regained strength he began to lay plans again. To stay where they were was well enough as a temporary device for escaping the savages, but Sam's main purpose now was to get the little people under his charge back to civilization somewhere, and then to do his part in the war between the Indians and whites. He must first find a way to get Tom and Judie and Joe into one of the forts or into some safe town, and how to do this was the problem. ”

“ Sam had learned this fact by accident while out hunting one day, and Sam took care never to forget anything which might be useful. Towards night, when the rushes failed to satisfy their hunger, Sam was puzzling himself over the problem of getting food, when Tom asked him if he knew the name of a singular tree he had seen while out after rushes.
"It has the biggest leaves I ever saw," he said, "and they all grow right out of its top. Some of 'em are six feet long, and they've got folds in 'em. There ain't any limbs to the tree at all." ”