The Riflemen of the Ohio: A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River"Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
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The Riflemen of the Ohio: A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River"
Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Juvenile fiction; Ohio River -- Juvenile fiction
He awoke the next morning after the coming of the daylight, and sprang
to his feet. The sudden movement caused a slight pain in his side, but
he knew now that the wound was not serious. Had it been so it would have
stiffened in the night, and he would now be feverish, but he felt
strong, and his head was clear and cool. Another proof of his healthy
condition was the fierce hunger that soon assailed him. A powerful body
was demanding food, the furnace needed coal, and there was no way just
yet to supply it. This was the vital question to him, but he took
wilderness precautions before undertaking to solve it.
He made a little circle, searching the forest with eye and ear, but he
found no sign that the Wyandots were near. He did not believe that they
had given up the pursuit, but he was quite sure that they had not been
able to find his last trail in the night. When he had satisfied himself
upon this point, he washed his wound carefully in the waters of a brook,
and bound upon it a poultice of leaves, the use of which he had learned
among the Indians. Then he thought little more about it. He was so
thoroughly inured to hardship that it would heal quickly.
Now for food, food which he must take with his bare hands. It was not
late enough in the year for the ripening of wild fruits and for nuts,
but he had his mind upon blackberries. Therefore he sought openings,
knowing that they would not grow in the shade of the great trees, and
after more than an hour's hunting he found a clump of the blackberry
briars, loaded with berries, magnificent, large, black, and fairly
crammed with sweetness.
Henry was fastidious. He had not tasted food for nearly a day, and he
ached with hunger, but he broke off a number of briars containing the
largest stores of berries, and ate slowly and deliberately. The memory
of that breakfast, its savor and its welcome, lingered with him long.
Blackberries are no mean food, as many an American boy has known, but
Henry was well aware that he must have something stronger, if he were to
remain fit for his great task. But that divine spark of courage which
was his most precious possession was kindled into a blaze. Food brought
back all his strength, and his veins pulsated with life. Somehow he
would find a way for everything.
He fixed his course once more toward the southeast. The country here was
entirely new to him, much rougher, the hills increasing in height and
steepness, and he inferred that he was approaching a river, some
tributary of the Ohio.
When he reached the crest of a hill steeper than the rest, he dropped
down among the bushes as if he had been shot. He had happened to look
back, and he caught a passing glimpse of brown among the green. It was
quick come, quick gone, but he had seen enough to know that it was an
Indian following him, undoubtedly one of the pursuing Wyandots, who, by
chance, had hit upon his trail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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