"Mr. Gracewood says it weighs about six hundred."
"Do you expect to bring a gun weighing six hundred in this little boat?"
"I think you are smart, Phil, after what you did last night; but you might as well try to drink up the Missouri as to bring that gun in this boat," persisted the soldier.
"Let Phil alone," said Morgan, the oarsman, who seemed to have more confidence in my ability than his companion.
We landed at the south end of Paradise Island, because there were no bluffs to interfere with our operations. Securing the boat, we walked up the hill to the house. I was still thinking of the plan by which the gun was to be transported to the main shore, when I was startled by the crack of a rifle from the direction of the house.
IN WHICH PHIL FIGHTS THE INDIANS ON THE ISLAND.
"Get behind the trees!" I called to my companions, as I promptly adopted the tactics of Kit Cruncher; for in fighting Indians discretion is eminently the better part of valor.
"Was any one hit?" asked Morgan, the man nearest to me, as he dodged behind a cotton-wood tree.
"Nor I," added Plunkett, the other soldier; "but that ball came within a quarter of an inch of my right ear."
"Who fired that shot?" asked Morgan. "I didn't see anybody."
"Then we had better take ourselves off as quick as possible," suggested Plunkett.
"Not without the gun," I continued. "The three Indians you fired at on the river last night have come over here. You don't mean to run away from three Indians--do you?"
"No; but I don't like the situation," said Plunkett.
The cotton-wood trees were large enough to furnish us ample shelter, and we waited a reasonable time, with our guns pointed, for the savages to show themselves; but they were no more disposed to do so than we were. It looked like a slow and lazy fight, and I was afraid the main body of the redskins would attack the lieutenant before we could reach him with the gun.
"What shall we do? We don't want to stay here all day," said Morgan.
"It is just as dangerous to go back as it is to go forward," I replied.
"Forward it is, then," added Morgan. "I don't want to be shot in the back, if I am to be shot at all."
As my companion did not suggest a plan of operations, unless the proposition of Plunkett to run away may be regarded as such, I endeavored to solve the problem myself. The formation of the island, like many others in the Mississippi and Missouri, was peculiar. Its surface was a gradual slope from the point where we had landed to the up-river end, which was a bluff of considerable height. On the most elevated portion grew the tallest of the trees, which gradually diminished in size, till at the lower end they were mere bushes. The current of the river beating against the upper end washed away the earth, and carried the soil to the lower end, leaving an annual deposit there.