He called to Firefly, "Are you there?"
She answered in a sleepy voice, "Yes."
"Are you sure?" Firetop called back; "because Father and Mother aren"t."
"Aren"t what?" said Firefly, getting wider awake.
"Aren"t there," Firetop answered.
Firefly lifted her head and tried to roll over. If she had not been tied she would have rolled out of bed. She looked down, too. The branches were certainly empty.
What would you do if you were to wake up in the morning and find yourself tied in bed and your father and mother gone and no breakfast ready? Well, they did just the same thing! They simply yelled. They had good strong lungs and they made a great deal of noise. When they stopped, they heard a distant shout that sounded like their own. "Ow, ow, ow." It came back to them from two different directions.
"That"s not Father"s voice," said Firetop.
"Nor Mother"s," said Firefly.
"It"s somebody"s. It must be theirs. Let"s call again," said Firetop.
They nearly split their throats that time. "Ow, ow, ow," they screamed, and "Ow, ow, ow," came back from the forest and the river.
"It must be the spirits of the water and the trees, mocking us," said Firetop. "It sounded just like us."
You see, they did not know what an echo was.
"I"m scared," said Firefly.
"I am too, a little," Firetop admitted.
"Let"s not call any more. If we keep still, maybe the spirits won"t find us," whispered Firefly.
They snuggled down in the wolf-skins and kept very still. By and by they heard a crashing sound in the underbrush not far away. They were stiff with fright. They didn"t dare even to breathe. Then came a loud cry, "Hoo, hoo, hooooooo," and the crashing noise came nearer. It came right under their tree. Then somebody"s voice called, "Are you awake, little red foxes, up in the tree?"
Two red heads instantly popped over the edge of the tree beds, and two voices cried out something that meant, "Oh, we"re so glad that you"ve come back."
Limberleg climbed the tree and untied the children. It took them about two seconds to get to the ground, and they didn"t fall down either.
There under the tree they found Hawk-Eye. He was preparing breakfast.
He and Limberleg had gone down to the river-bank very early and had found a whole colony of turtles. They had brought home four turtle-eggs apiece. If I were an arithmetic, I should ask how many eggs there were!
It would have been of no use to ask the Twins. Neither they nor their father and mother could have told you. They hadn"t any of them learned to count that far. n.o.body could in those days.
They made short work of the eggs, even if they couldn"t add or multiply or divide. When they had finished eating them, they strapped their skins on their shoulders once more and started up the river. All the morning they tramped steadily along, looking for a good place to ford it. The sun was already in the west, when suddenly Limberleg stopped at a turn in the bluff.
"See, see," she cried. "Two rivers." They all stopped and looked. The river forked at that point, or rather two smaller streams came together making one big one.
There was a high V-shaped point of land between the two streams.
"Now we can cross," cried Limberleg, joyfully. She led the way, running and leaping down the bluffs to the river"s edge. The banks at this point were sandy and the river full of stones. The current was swift, but the water was clear and not very deep. Limberleg ran out on the stones.
"Come," she called to the Twins. "Follow close after me." She leaped lightly over the stones to the middle of the stream, where the river was deepest. The children followed part way; then Firetop stood still on one of the stones and looked at the swirling water. Firefly was on the next stone behind him. The stone in front looked a long way off to Firetop.
"I can"t jump so far," he squealed.
"I can"t either," wailed Firefly. "My legs aren"t long enough."
"Jump," cried Limberleg, impatiently.
"We can"t," shouted the Twins, beginning to cry.
You see, they were afraid of water, and it really wasn"t much wonder, for they had never even had a real bath in their whole lives. I"ve known children to feel just the same way about water in these days.
They can"t bear it, even on a wash-cloth.
Hawk-Eye was on the stone behind them. "Jump," he shouted, "or I"ll give you something to cry for." And that was the very first time that any parent ever said that about giving them something to cry for, and they"ve been saying it ever since, to my personal knowledge.
You see that, with Limberleg in front calling "Jump" and Hawk-Eye behind saying such alarming things, the Twins were in a tight place. There was nothing to do but jump. So Firetop took a flying leap, and Firefly followed him. Unluckily she came just a little too soon. She jumped on to Firetop. His feet flew out from under him, he lost his footing on the stone, and they both rolled into the cold water.
The crying they had done before wasn"t anything to what they did then, I can tell you. That is, as soon as their heads were out of the water again.
They might have been carried away by the current, if Hawk-Eye hadn"t instantly thrown his spear across to the farther sh.o.r.e and jumped in after them. He seized one of them with each hand and waded with them to land. Then he picked up his spear again from the ground where it had fallen.
If you will believe me, the Twins held tight to their own little spears all the time, even when they were under the water! It was all they had to hold to, to be sure, and besides, they loved those spears more than we love dolls and roller skates and marbles and baseball, all put together.
Limberleg laughed at the dripping little figures.
"You look like a pair of water-rats," she cried. The Twins could not see anything funny in that. Little streams of water trickled down their backs, and they didn"t like it. The rock that was on the point of land between the two rivers was not far away from the place where they landed.
"Let"s go to the top," said Limberleg to the Twins. "That will warm you up."
It was quite a steep climb, and I wish you could see what they saw from that summit. They could look a long way up each of the two rivers and a long way down the big one. There were deep, silent woods along the sh.o.r.es. They looked back on the land between the two streams. They were all beginning to be hungry again by this time, and they hoped that they might see their supper wandering about somewhere over the rocks.
"We"ll see who has the sharpest eyes," said Limberleg.
"I see something white right now, way down there in the bushes," said Firefly. "It"s bouncing around."
"I see it, too," said Hawk-Eye. "It"s the tail of a deer. There"s a herd down there!" Hawk-Eye started down the rocks in a hurry. "I"ll not be gone long," he called back to Limberleg. "Get a fire started before I come back."
Limberleg and the Twins watched Hawk-Eye until he disappeared in the underbrush. Then she and the children began to gather wood for the fire. Firetop found a piece of hard wood that was round. Limberleg pointed the end of it with her flint knife. Then they hunted for a piece of soft wood. In the soft wood Limberleg made a little hollow place that would fit the end of the stick.
"Now, Firefly, you stay with me," said she. "I want you to gather little tendrils of dry moss and watch beside me while I twirl the stick.
The moment I tell you to, you must drop little pieces of dry moss into the hollow place in the wood. Firetop, you gather a great heap of sticks here on top of the rock." Limberleg knelt on the edge of the rock and began to twirl the stick between her hands. As she twirled she mumbled a prayer to the fire G.o.d.
Firefly held the soft wood firmly in place while Limberleg worked. She twirled and twirled until a tiny thread of smoke began to curl from the hollow. "Drop in the moss," cried Limberleg. The smoke grew thicker.
Limberleg worked faster and faster. Soon a tiny flame burst forth.
Firefly fed the flame with the dried moss until it was big enough to burn little twigs and dead leaves. Soon a brisk fire was burning.
Firetop had brought a great pile of wood to the rock, and had also found some long willow branches to use in broiling meat.
"The fire is ready, but where is the food?" said Firefly. It was not long in coming. Hawk-Eye soon appeared climbing up the rock with a young doe on his shoulder. He and Limberleg skinned it and cut up the meat, and they had all the broiled venison they could possibly eat for supper.
"We shall have to spend the night here," said Hawk-Eye, when they couldn"t eat any more. "We couldn"t find a better place anyway. There is water around the rock except on the land side. We"ll keep the fire bright, and we shall be just as safe as if we were in the cave."