"We'll go up above the rapids and make a raft. Quick! We can manage with this knife."
They hurried. They went up the shore about six miles, and worked hard gathering logs, and cutting brush and vines with their one knife. They feared that they'd hear the Indians any moment. The warriors were hot after them. Whew! And there was home, just across!
The raft, when finished, did not amount to much.
"It won't hold all of us," puffed Fat Bear. "You get on. I'm the heaviest. I'm the best swimmer, too. You-all paddle, and I'll swim alongside."
They tumbled aboard, with branches for oars. Little Fat Bear shoved off and began to swim and push. They had no time to spare--
Shrill whoops sounded. The Miamis were on the fresh trail.
Fat Bear kicked and pushed mightily; the others dug with their boughs. The clumsy raft moved slowly, and was carried down stream by the current. Would they never get away from shore! Would the Miamis swim after them, or shoot! They made a good target.
That was so. From the opposite shore a boat--two boats had put out. The raft was drifting badly, but the danger shore gradually receded, the rescue boats neared, and the home shore grew plainer. Swimming, Little Fat Bear was getting blue around the mouth, his face was pale and pinched. The November water had chilled him to the bone.
The Miamis had burst out upon the shore behind. They yelled furiously, and shook their fists--but they yelled and threatened in vain. Now they dared not follow farther. The boats from the Kentucky shore took the paddlers off the raft; dragged Little Fat Bear from the cold water. His teeth chattered. He could not manage himself. He had not been taken out any too soon.
"Who are you, anyhow! White boys? Where from?"
"We're the boys that the Miamis stole from the Pope settlement last February--all except Billy Wells. He's with 'em still."
"What! How'd you get away? Your folks had give you up. I declare! Made off alone, did you!"
"Clear from the Little Calumet River. Been three weeks."
"Whoopee! Think o' that! Guess we'd better take you down to Louisville, soon as we can. Colonel Pope's moved into town, 'count o' Injuns. He'll be powerful glad to see you, and so will your other folks."
And that proved true. Colonel Pope met them at the landing. Little Fat Bear was carried ashore, to be rubbed and dosed. And from this time on for many a week there certainly were four boy heroes in the Louisville district, with "tall" stories to be told over and over again.