"
Fortune was with them, and in a quarter of an hour they
discovered, deep among bushes growing in the shallow water, a
large, well-made boat with two pairs of oars and with small
supplies of parched corn and venison hidden in it.
"Good luck an' bad luck come mixed," said the shift-less one,
"an' this is shorely one o' our pieces o' good luck. The woman
an' the children are clean tuckered out, an' without this boat we
could never hev got them back. Now it's jest a question o'
rowin' an' fightin'."
"Paul and I will pull her out to the edge of the clear water,"
said Henry, "while you can go back and tell the others, Sol."
"That just suits a lazy man," said Sol, and he walked away
jauntily. Under his apparent frivolity he concealed his joy at
the find, which he knew to be of such vast importance. He
approached the dusky group, and his really tender heart was
stirred with pity for the rescued captives. Long Jim and Silent
Tom held the smaller two on their shoulders, but the older ones
and the woman, also, had fallen asleep. Sol, in order to conceal
his emotion, strode up rather roughly. Mary Newton awoke.
"Did you find anything?" she asked.
"Find anything?" repeated Shif'less Sol.
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