CHAPTER VIII

That was a wrestling-match that Tad never forgot. Abe met the opening rush of the Tennesseean with an old trick, but a good one. Crouching just at the right time, he caught the hunter around the knees and lifted him, letting the momentum of his charge carry him on over Abe’s shoulder. Instantly the young Hoosier spun about and gripped his rival’s body almost before it touched the ground. But Crockett broke the hold with a great writhing twist and rolled over to light on his feet like a fighting cat.

After that they came together more cautiously, each seeming to realize that he was dealing with an opponent beyond the common run. They stepped in and out with a swift padding of moccasined feet, their hands sparring for grips. Twice they went down together, with Abe underneath, for he was finding his antagonist tremendously fast and strong. But the lanky flatboatman could turn quickly, too, and he refused to stay under long enough to have his shoulders pinned to the sand.

Minutes went by, and still the two kept up their furious pace. It was hot in the sun. Sweat streamed from their bodies, and they panted hoarsely each time they came to grips. But there was no easing off in the ferocity of their attack.

To Tad, watching breathlessly and shouting encouragement to his champion, came the thought that here perhaps Abe had met his match. A sudden lightning-like shift of the hunter’s grip and a sharp heave of his shoulders brought the tall youngster to earth yet again, and the watchers could see that this time Abe was hard put to it to defend himself. He was on his right side, with the powerful Crockett partly on top of him, struggling to turn him with a half nelson--a hold in which the hunter’s left arm was used as a lever under Abe’s left arm and around the back of his neck.

The Hoosier’s long legs were spread in a wide V to brace him, and he seemed to be making a last desperate resistance against a defeat he could not avoid.

“Gosh,” groaned Tad, as he saw Abe’s shoulders slowly giving.

“Hol’ on!” Allen breathed. “He ain’t done yet.”

And almost before the words had left his mouth, the whole complexion of the bout had changed. With a sudden tremendous twist, Abe rolled over to his right side, breaking the hold, and as he turned, his long, strong legs wound themselves swiftly about the hunter’s middle.

“Hooray!” yelled Allen. “I was waitin’ fer that. Watch, now, when he puts the clamps on!”

The Tennesseean strove fiercely to break loose, but those fence-rail legs of Abe’s were as tough as hickory. He locked them at the ankles, and as his knees straightened, the hunter’s breath came in short, hard gasps. And slowly Abe began to turn him over.

As the minutes passed, Crockett’s endurance ebbed. He made one final try, fighting with the fury of a wildcat to escape from the vise in which he was gripped. Then as his muscles relaxed, his young antagonist pressed him downward with his shoulders squarely on the ground.

“Say ‘’nough’?” panted Abe. But Crockett had no breath to speak. He moved his head in a weary gesture of assent.

The Indiana boy unwound his legs and got up, stiffly, reaching out a hand to the defeated bear-hunter. Crockett stumbled to his feet and stood feeling gingerly of his ribs.

“Yuh-yuh--you keep the b’ar!” he gasped when enough of his wind returned, and a sort of rueful grin wrinkled his leather-brown face.

The wrestlers were both in such perfect condition that they were soon feeling as fit as ever. Abe turned from his playful mauling of the bear cub to speak to his late opponent. “We didn’t say, at the start-off, whether this yere match was one fall or best two out o’ three,” he said. “What say--want to try another?”

“No, sir,” replied the hunter promptly. “That’s mighty square of you, but I reckon I know when I’m beat. I’ve wrastled with plenty o’ good ones an’ never been thrown till now. But I never tackled a feller as strong as you, nor as long. All arms an’ legs--iron legs, at that.

“Wal, boys,” he cried, “what are ye--hungry? How ’bout some b’ar steak, cooked fresh, Injun fashion?”

The sun was getting low and all of the flatboat hands had good appetites. They went to work with a will, therefore, brought in dry wood by the armful, and soon were broiling the meat on green sticks over a hot fire.

It was Tad’s first taste of bear, and he was not at all sure he liked it at the start. But soon he was eating it like the rest, with gusto. Allen brought a pan and some cups down from the boat, and they finished with a round of tea.

Crockett smacked his lips over the steaming beverage. “Boy, howdy!” said he. “I ain’t had a cup fer close to a month. This b’ar-huntin’ is a good trade, but it makes ye give up a lot o’ refinements.

“Ye know,” he said, and hesitated, blushing a little, “I was up to Washington fer the last term o’ Congress--sent up to represent the folks in this part o’ Tennessee. But I never could git accustomed to city ways. I’d git to feelin’ jest about starved fer a mess o’ b’ar’s meat every once in so often. An’ it’s the same way now I’m back home here, roamin’ through the woods an’ the canebrake; I git a hankerin’ sometimes fer jelly-cake an’ tea.

“Ever thought about goin’ in fer politics, Longshanks?”

It was Abe’s turn to blush. “I’ve thought about a heap o’ things,” he answered gruffly. “Politics, fer one, because I like to make speeches an’ get a crowd to listen to me. What I’d like to be most, though, is a good lawyer.”

Allen haw-hawed loudly at this confession, but Davy Crockett listened with respect.

“I’ll wager you’ll git thar,” he nodded. “Though I don’t hold much with lawyers, myself. They’re too slick--always up to some crooked business.”

Abe warmed up at once. “That’s exactly the reason,” said he. “I want to be a good enough lawyer to beat some o’ the smart ones at their own game. A good lawyer kin be a powerful lot o’ help to folks that’s in trouble.”

He settled down again in his place before the fire, crossing his long legs and chuckling reminiscently as he looked at Allen. “Puts me in mind of old Jeff Slocum,” said he. “A lot of us boys saw him lyin’ side o’ the road one blizzardy night. He’d been thrown out o’ the tavern an hour before an’ started fer home too drunk to stagger. We all thought ’twas jest a log o’ wood or some brush that the snow was beginnin’ to cover, but I wasn’t dead sure an’ went back. Thar he lay, half drifted over, an’ right on the edge o’ freezin’. So I threw him over my shoulder an’ lugged him home to his cabin. I got a fire goin’ an’ rubbed him with snow an’ finally thawed him out, an’ thanks to all the red-eye he’d drunk, he was ’round in a week, right as ever.

“But come summer he got in trouble again, an’ that time I couldn’t help him a particle. Seems like some o’ his shoats got into Newt Padgett’s bean-patch an’ dug things up pretty general. An’ Newt, bein’ the meanest man on the whole creek, hauled Jeff into court. He got a judgment fer more’n Jeff ever owned, spite o’ the fact that the trouble all rose from Newt bein’ too mean to keep his fences up.

“I sure wished right then that I was a lawyer,” Abe finished. “I believe I could have saved Jeff’s bacon.”

“You’ve got the right idee,” said the bear-hunter. “Whar the land is bein’ settled up so fast, thar’s bound to be more an’ more law, and with it more lawyers. An’ this country sure needs the kind o’ lawyers that you aim to be, ’stid o’ the other kind.

“Speakin’ fer myself, I don’t keer so much about law as I do about independence. When I’ve got the ol’ rifle along I don’t need laws to protect me. Here in Tennessee it’s gittin’ ’most too civilized now. I don’t take no comfort when I shoot, fer fear I’ll hit some one. I’ve been thinkin’ some about goin’ up the Missouri or down Mexico way. As long as that’s more b’ars than people, I kin stand ’most any sort o’ country. But soon as the folks ketches up on the b’ars, I figger it’s gittin’ too crowded.”

Crockett rose and stretched his powerful frame.

“Sun’s a-settin’ an’ I’ve got ’most ten miles to travel back to my camp,” he said. “Much obleeged fer your company an’ fer the wrastlin’ lesson. If you aim to push on tonight, you’ll be out o’ this cut within two mile, an’ it’s open river fer quite a ways below.”

They bade him farewell and saw him slip into the tangled cane silently as an Indian, the big dogs trotting at his heels. Then they boarded the flatboat once more, and pushed off.

Tad, searching among the gear in the _Katy Roby’s_ hold, found a light chain which he substituted for the rope about the cub’s neck, and fastened him to a staple amidships, with a pile of dry grass for a bed.

The little black fellow pulled comically at the chain with his paws, tested its length by prowling back and forth a few times, and finally curled up in his nest for a nap. Tad left him snoring and tiptoed forward where Abe was pulling at the oars.

The tall Hoosier worked awhile in silence, his face somber in the gathering dusk. Then a grin twisted the corners of his big mouth. “Lucky thing fer me this Crockett feller didn’t take me up on another fall,” said he. “I was closer to gittin’ my deserts that time than I ever remember. He’d have thrown me sure, I reckon. Golly, what a man!”

Tad stoutly pooh-poohed the idea that Davy Crockett, or any other human, could take the measure of his hero. But Abe smiled and shook his head.

“’Tain’t jest that he was strong,” he explained. “There’s plenty o’ big, powerful men. But I never hooked up with one that was faster on his feet or had more grit.”

Night had fallen when they reached the end of the cut, and they could see little of the river below except a wide, shadowy expanse of water with indistinct lines of shore receding on either hand.

“Sleepy, Tad?” asked Abe. “If ye ain’t, we’d better keep a double look-out fer snags an’ sand-reefs. I’m a-goin’ right on till Allen wakes up an’ spells me.”

The boy took up his position squatting in the bow, his gaze straining into the dark ahead. There was no noise except the lap of the hurrying river around the flatboat’s sides and the occasional soft creak of the tholepins. The deck heaved slightly, with a steady, breathing motion, as Abe’s moccasins trod backward and forward, and the long sweeps pulled through the water.

Tad, his fancy thrilled at first by the vast loneliness around them and the sense of mystery and adventure in their silent downward voyage, began to feel sleepy after an hour or two. He shifted his position again and again, to shake himself awake, but his head would nod in spite of all his efforts.

Suddenly there came sounds from the left bank, half a mile away, that made him start bolt upright, wide awake and listening.

A shout carried across the water, menacing and sharp. There was an interval of a few seconds and then an eager whimper reached them, followed by a deep, bell-like tone--the baying of a hound. Lights appeared, glimmering in jerky movements along the shore. Another shout or two followed, and then everything was quiet. The lights disappeared one by one, and the desolate, brooding dark settled once more over the face of the river.

“What was it, Abe?” whispered the boy.

“Dunno,” said Abe. “No way o’ tellin’. But it sure did give me the cold creeps; didn’t it you?”

“Yes,” shivered Tad. He was no longer sleepy. With every sense on the alert, he watched the dim banks and the dusky water ahead. Thoughts of the terrible Murrell and other cold-blooded rogues of the river crossed his mind. For nearly half an hour he expected momentarily to see danger of some kind develop. Then, just as he was lulling himself into a sense of security, another startling thing happened.

Directly in their path ahead, Tad thought he made out a dark object drifting with the current. He scrambled to his knees, peering fixedly at the spot, and Abe stopped rowing. “What d’ye see?” asked the big oarsman in a low voice.

“Just a floating log, I think,” Tad whispered, “only I thought I saw it move.”

The dark object was only a dozen yards away now, and they could distinguish the outline of an uprooted tree trunk. Abe was just changing the flatboat’s course with a vigorous pull on the starboard oar when Tad gave a sudden exclamation. A part of the log had seemed to separate from the main trunk and had slid off with a considerable splash into the river.

“Look!” cried Tad, pointing to the other side of the floating snag. A dark, round object which had been drawing rapidly away to the right disappeared under water at the boy’s exclamation. And though they watched intently while they passed the log, and for many minutes after, they had no further glimpse of it.

“That must have been a man, swimmin’,” said Abe at length. “Too big fer a muskrat or a turtle. Didn’t look like a panther nor a b’ar. Runaway slave, I reckon. Wal, the pore devil needn’t have been so scairt of us.”

Allen came forward, wakened by the talk, and heard their story. “That’s probably what the commotion on shore was about,” he said. “You fellers is both tired, so I’ll take her down awhile, jest driftin’. Won’t need a look-out that way.”

And Abe and Tad, going aft to their blankets, were soundly sleeping within ten minutes.