Although Cris Carrol was absent from the immediate neighbourhood of the
settlement, he was none the less informed of what had happened since his
departure.
Several of the colonists, alarmed at the prospect of affairs, had
quietly left Tampa Bay, and, meeting with the hunter, had told him of
the events that had transpired within the past month.
The backwoodsman's foresight had not deceived him.
The whites, by which he meant Elias and his followers, had not heeded
his advice, and worse had come of it.
The hunter was nothing, if not oracular.
"Wal," said he, "Governor Rody thought himself smart when he set to work
buildin' that thar frame-house of his'n on the red-man's ground, but I
reckon he'll pay for it yet in bloody scalps and broken bones. Confound
the old cormorant; his house will cause all of them poor white settlers
no end of trouble. It don't bear thinkin' on, that it don't. As for
his black-hearted whelp of a son, darn me if I wouldn't like to put an
ounce o' lead into his carcass, if it war only to larn him some human
feelin'."
"But won't you go back to the settlement now, and see if your presence
can do any good?"
To this question, propounded by one of the fugitive settlers, Cris
answered--
"Good! What good can I do now? No, lad, the fat's in the fire this
time, and, may be, I may better help some poor critter away from the
place than anigh it. I'll tell ye what it is, and it aint no use
denyin' it. Them there red devils means mischief, and the old cuss Rody
knows it by this time. The chief, Oluski, what you tell me air dead,
war worth a whole settlement of Rody's--barrin' one--that is, barrin'
one."
"And who may that be?"
"Who but his darter. The most beautifullest gal that this coon ever set
eyes on. Bless her, I hope no hurt won't come to her, and there shan't
either, if Cris Carrol can prevent it."
In this manner did the honest hunter comment on the alarming news
brought by the fugitives from Tampa Bay.
Not that he approached the spot closely. No; he had formed an idea of
the manner in which he might be most useful; and, to do so, he must
carefully avoid any appearance of interference between the contending
parties.
He, therefore, pursued his occupation of hunting; but contrived
materially to narrow the circle of his excursions.
Often as the image of Alice Rody presented itself to his mind, he would
heave a painful sigh.
"How such a gal came to be a child of that old trait'rous heathen is
more nor I can reckon up. It's one of them thar things as philosophers
call startlers!"
In one of these moralising, wandering moods the old hunter was seated on
a tree stump on the afternoon of a day that had been more than usually
fatiguing to him.
He knocked the ashes from his pipe, took a plug of tobacco from his
pouch, and began to cut up a supply for another smoke.
"Ah!" muttered he, shaking his head, "I remember the time when there was
happiness in the savannahs, and when them red-skins were ready to help
the white man rather than fight agin them. Them times is gone from hyar
for ever!"
He struck a light with his flint, and applied it to his pipe.
Just as he had puffed two or three small clouds of smoke, and was
preparing to enjoy himself to the fullest extent, a flash suddenly
appeared, the pipe was knocked from his mouth, and the whizz of a bullet
sounded in his ears!
To grasp his rifle and shelter himself behind a tree, on the side
opposite to that from which the shot proceeded, was but the work of an
instant.
"Red-skins, by the eternal! I know it by the twang of that rough-cast
bullet."
Whether red-skins or white men, he did not find it easy to be certain,
although he was up to every move in such an emergency.
He knew that to look in the direction of the shot was to expose himself
to almost certain death.
He listened with breathless anxiety for the slightest sound, which might
give evidence of the movements of the enemy.
All remained perfectly still.
Adopting a very old _ruse_, he stuck his skin cap upon the barrel of his
rifle, and held it out a few inches beyond the trunk of the tree, by the
side of which he had ensconced himself.
A flash, a report, and it was pierced by a bullet!
He was now fully satisfied that there was but one enemy with whom he had
to cope.
Had there been more, the first bullet, which struck the pipe from his
mouth, would have been followed by another as quickly, but perhaps more
surely aimed.
With a rapid glance he surveyed the ground behind him.
It was covered with undergrowth and fallen timber.
His resolution was at once taken.
He fell flat upon the earth, and noiselessly gliding away reached a
tree, distant some paces, and in an oblique direction from the one he
had left.
From that spot he made his way to another, at a greater angle, and about
equally distant from the second.
The movements were affected with such agile stealthiness, as to be
entirely unperceived by his unseen enemy.
By the change of position he now commanded a side view of his unknown
antagonist, who, unsuspicious of it, was keeping a close watch upon
Carrol's supposed shelter.
To raise his rifle to his shoulder was a natural action of the old
hunter.
Instead of pulling the trigger, however, some idea seemed to cross his
mind, and pausing, he scanned his adversary.
He saw it was Maracota who had fired at him!
Carrol knew Maracota as a faithful and devoted follower of the late
chief, and he felt loth to take his life, although he might easily have
done so.
The better thought prevailed.
He felt convinced that the bullet fired by the Indian had been aimed in
reality at one for whom Maracota had mistaken him.
Advancing cautiously towards the unconscious warrior, the old
backwoodsman crept from tree to tree until he was close upon him.
Not anticipating an attack from the rear, and still fancying he
commanded the hiding-place of the white man, Maracota, in spite of his
Indian cunning, was completely in the white man's power.
A loud shout, a quick bound, and Carrol had him in his grasp.
With one hand upon his throat, the hunter had pinned him to the earth.
"Not a word, you darned catamount, or I'll run my knife into your ribs!
So you thought to circumwent me, did yer, with your Injun treachery?
What would you say now if I war to raise your har, 'stead of letting you
take mine?"
Maracota could make no reply to the question, as the pressure on his
throat stopped his breath as well as speech.
The backwoodsman saw by the expression upon the Indian's face, that his
own surmise had been correct.
He was not the victim Maracota would have doomed to death.
It was a mistake, but rather a serious one.
Loosening his hold, he suffered the astonished Maracota to rise to his
feet.
"Yes; I can tell you've made a random shot at me. Next time, try and
see a man's face 'fore you pulls trigger on him, or it might be awkward.
There's no harm done, only a worse shot nor yours I never saw. I'd eat
my rifle, stock, lock and barrel, afore I'd own to sich shooting. Who
war it you were arter?"
Having at length recovered breath, the Indian was able to answer.
"I took you for Warren Rody."
"Much obleeged for the compliment. Do I look such a skunk as that
fellow? If I do, put a brace of bullets into me, and we won't quarrel."
The warrior grimly smiled.
"Maracota has sworn to avenge Oluski's death. Warren Rody must die!"
"Wal, let him die. I shan't stop you from riddin' the world of such as
he. What made you follow my trail?"
"It was no trail I followed. I have been seeking one from the north;
yours came from the east."
"Right you air; that's whar I hail from last."
"Have you seen anything of him, or Sansuta?"
"Hark hyar, Injun. Altho' I might draw blood in the scoundrel if I saw
him, I ain't a _man-hunter_, and that's why I haint been a follerin' any
trail of his'n."
Maracota's eager look gave place to one of despondency, as he
muttered,--
"Not found yet! Where can they be?"
"Ah, whar? It ain't Warren as has hid whar he can't be found. Some
knowin' hand has put him up to it."
"Yes, Maracota thinks so. It must be the negro Crookleg."
"Crookleg! Is that all-fired nigger varmint mixed up with him? That
makes a brace of the durndest hounds that ever run together. Who told
you that Crookleg helped young Rody?"
"The chief thinks so."
"Wal, then, I'll bet a 'possum skin agin a musk rat's that he's right.
Your chief, Wacora, is as likely an Injun at reck'nin up the merits o' a
case as this coon knows on. Now you've missed liftin' my scalp, what do
you intend doin'?"
"Go on looking for the chief who stole Oluski's heart, find him, and
kill him."
The glance that accompanied these words was full of deadly
determination.
"Wal, go, and good luck attend you. Don't ask me to jine you, I tell
you I ain't no man-hunter nor never will be; only, if either of them
thar scamps should be out walkin' whar I chance to be, they had better
have met with a mad bar than this Cris Carrol. Never mind sayin' a word
about that bad shot o' yourn. The moment I seed you I knowed you didn't
mean it for me, only next time be more partiklar, that's all."
Without making reply, Maracota turned away, and was soon lost under the
shadows of the forest.
As soon as he was out of sight, the old hunter renewed his preparations
for a smoke.
Drawing from his pouch (which seemed to contain everything that the
heart of a hunter could desire) another pipe, he was soon once more
sending clouds of blue smoke up into the air.
"If that Maracota meets Warren Rody or Crookleg he'll be an awkward
customer to either or both on 'em; and that he may meet 'em he has Cris
Carrol's best prayers and wishes."
With this homely but sincere expression of his desires, the backwoodsman
ceased to think of the deadly danger lately threatening himself.