can see all these boats halfway down the lake, and, with all these
redskins about, they will ambush us as soon as we try to land.

"Look here, captain; you know that I ain't no coward. I don't think no
one can say that of me. I am ready to fight when there is a chance of
fighting, but I don't see no good in getting myself killed off, when
there ain't no good in it. So what I says is this: don't you be in a
hurry, captain, with these boats of ours."

"But I must obey orders, Nat," James said, smiling.

"Yes, you must obey orders, captain, no doubt. But there's two ways of
obeying orders. The one is to rush in front, and to do a little more
than you are told. The other is to take things quiet, and just do what
you are told, and no more. Now, my advice is, on this here expedition
you go on the last plan. If you are ordered to land first, why land
first it must be. If you don't get orders to land first, just let them
as is in a hurry land afore you. I ain't been teaching all these lads
to know something about the woods, for the last six months, jest to see
them killed off like flies, because a blundering wrong-headed colonel
sends them out with two hundred and fifty ploughmen, for the redskins
to see and attack jest when they fancies."

"Very well, Nat, I will take your advice, and, for once, we won't put
ourselves in the front, unless we are ordered."

Satisfied with this, Nat passed quietly round among the men, as they
were taking their places in the boats, and told them that there was no
occasion for them to row as if they were racing.

"I shall be in the captain's boat," he said. "You keep close to us, and
don't you try to push on ahead. When we are once fairly in the woods,
then we will do the scouting for the rest, but there ain't no hurry for
us to begin that, till we are on shore."

"Look at us," Nat grumbled in James's ear, as the boats started down
the lake. "There we are, rowing along the middle, instead of sneaking
along close to the shore. Does Parker think that the redskins are as
blind as he is, and that, 'cause it's night, a lot of big boats like
these can't be seen out in the middle of the lake? I tell you, captain,
if we ain't ambushed as soon as we land, I will grant I know nothing of
redskin ways."

James had, in fact, before starting, suggested to Colonel Parker that
it would be well to keep under the shelter of the bushes; but the
officer had replied stiffly:

"When I want your advice, Captai