Boone gazed in astonishment at the tall figure that, in spite of the
gloom that enshrouded the interior of the Indian wigwam, he could
distinguish standing in the center of the lodge.
With noiseless steps the dark form moved to the door of the wigwam and
listened for a moment. Then it lifted the skin that served for a door
and peered out into the gloom of the night.
“Who the deuce can it be?” mused Boone, as, a helpless prisoner on the
couch of skins, he watched the movements of the unknown.
“It ain’t Kenton or Lark, I’m putty sure, ’cos it’s too big for either
of ’em. Who on yearth can it be? A friend, anyway, and friends are
allers welcome, particularly when a feller’s in sich a ’tarnal tight
place as I am now. I s’pect they’ll roast me to-morrow, and eat me,
too, for that matter, if I wasn’t so ’tarnal tough.”
Swelling on the night-air came the distant whoops of the savages.
Apparently satisfied with his scrutiny, the unknown let fall the skin
that served as the wigwam door, and again advanced to Boone.
“Say, stranger, this is a pesky fix,” said Boone, in a low and cautious
tone.
The unknown answered not, but knelt by the side of the prostrate man.
Then Boone felt two powerful arms seize him, and roll him over on his
side. As the hands of the mysterious stranger touched him, Boone felt a
cold shiver creep all over him. The hands of the stranger seemed to be
armed with claws like the paws of a beast.
“Jerusalem, stranger!” muttered Boone, “you ought to cut your
finger-nails; they stick right into a feller; and why didn’t you tell
me to turn over? I kin do that well enough, although I’m in a pesky fix
hyer.”
Then Boone heard the slight grating noise that a knife makes cutting
through leather.
The old hunter guessed the truth in an instant. The mysterious unknown
was cutting the thongs that bound his arms.
“Go ahead, stranger!” cried Boone, cautiously; “you don’t say much, but
you work well.”
A moment more and the bonds that bound Boone’s arms loosened. The
tension gone, the stout deer-skin severed by the keen-edged steel, and
the arms of the hunter were free.
With a grunt of relief, Boone stretched his arms in the air. Confined
as they had been, the sensation of freedom was a pleasant one.
As carelessly the hunter extended his arms in the air, one of his hands
touched the arm of the stranger. Again a cold shiver came over Boone.
“By hookey!” he muttered, to himself; “either your hunting-shirt’s made
of bear-skin, or else you’ve more hair on your arm than I have on my
head. I don’t understand this riffle a bit; but it’s a friend, anyway,
whoever he is.”
Then the stranger cut the thongs that bound Boone’s feet.
Again the hand of the stranger touched the hunter, and again it seemed
to him as if that hand was armed with the claws of an animal.
“I wish the derned critter _would_ say something,” muttered Boone,
slightly uneasy. “If he wasn’t acting so much like a human I should
think that it was a pet b’ar that had got hold on me.”
The stranger rose to his feet.
Boone followed his example.
“It’s a pleasant thing to be free, stranger,” Boone said, trying to
look into the face of the strange being who had come so aptly to
his rescue. But the gloom of the wigwam hid the face and form of the
unknown with an ebon mask.
Besides, too, the unknown had taken a couple of blankets from a lot
that lay in the corner of the wigwam, and wrapped one around his waist
and the other over his head, when he had first entered the lodge.
The stranger stooped, took up another blanket, and gave it into Boone’s
hands. The unknown seemed to possess the cat-like faculty of seeing in
the dark.
As he gave the blanket into Boone’s grasp, again his hand touched that
of the hunter.
“By jingo! his finger nails are awful,” muttered the hunter, to
himself. “If his toe-nails are as long, I shouldn’t like to have him
for a bedfellow. If he kicked any, he’d scratch a man half to death.”
The unknown took hold of a corner of Boone’s blanket and raised it a
little in the air.
Boone understood what the unknown meant in an instant.
“You want me to put it round my head, eh, so as to kiver up my face?”
A vigorous tug at the blanket answered the hunter.
“I s’pose you mean yes by that, hey?”
Then a second tug came.
“All right, I understand,” said Boone; “but why in thunder can’t you
speak and let a feller know what you mean?”
The stranger moved to the door of the wigwam, still keeping his hold on
the corner of Boone’s blanket. The old hunter followed him.
At the door the unknown paused for a moment, as if to listen.
“Goin’ right through the Injin village?” said Boone, in astonishment.
The stranger answered as before by a vigorous tug at the blanket.
“Why in thunder don’t you answer a feller?” asked the hunter,
thoroughly puzzled at the strange silence of the unknown who had come
so timely to his rescue.
The stranger replied not, but raised the skin that hung at the door and
passed out into the darkness of the night.
“I’ll see who it is, or what it is when we get outside,” muttered
Boone, to himself. “He acts more like a brute than a human. Derned if I
like a man that can’t answer a civil question. There’s a moon, so I can
see what sort of a critter he is; but, by jingo! the same light that
shows him to me will also show us to the Injins. This is goin’ to be a
narrow squeeze.”
But the unknown had no idea of issuing from the door of the wigwam into
the Indian village.
A single glance had shown the stranger that three stalwart warriors,
seated a few paces from the lodge, kept vigilant watch upon it.
Still keeping his hold upon the blanket, the mysterious being who had
so astonished the old hunter by his silence, moved with noiseless
step across the wigwam to the back of it, where he, by aid of his
knife, had gained entrance to it. Boone, guided by the movement of the
blanket--for it was almost too dark to distinguish forms--followed.
“Well, now, this is sense,” said Boone, approvingly; “we may stand a
chance to get clear of the red heathen.”
Boone felt that the stranger was lifting his corner of the blanket into
the air, then he flung it over Boone’s head.
“Wrap my head up? Of course; that’s a ’cute dodge,” and the hunter
chuckled to himself. “If any of the pizen Shawnees happen to see me,
they won’t be able to tell me from one of their own tribe with my head
kivered up, ’cos my legs are kivered with buck-skin leggin’s, same as
their own.”
Boone wrapped the blanket carelessly round his head, Indian fashion.
Then the stranger, who seemed to be able to distinguish the movements
of the hunter, in spite of the darkness, passed through the hole he had
previously cut in the skins that formed the side of the Indian lodge,
and gained the open air.
Boone followed.
“Now I kin see who it is,” muttered Boone, as he emerged into the air
from the confines of the lodge.
But, even as he spoke, a great, black cloud came rapidly over the face
of the moon and vailed its silvery rays of light from the earth.
All that Boone could make out in the darkness was, that, by his side,
was standing a stalwart form, even overtopping himself in hight, tall
as he was. But the form was wrapped so completely in Indian blankets
from the head to the feet, that the hunter could distinguish neither
feature nor limb.
“Well, dog-gone my persimmons!” said the hunter, in disgust, “I’d like
to see what and who the critter is that I’m owing my life to.”
The stranger listened, intently, for a moment.
In the position the two were standing, the lodge completely hid them
from view of the village. In front of them ran the turbid waters of the
Scioto.
The stranger moved, slowly and cautiously, to the bank of the river.
Boone noticed that his footfall gave out no sound, and that, too, he
moved with a singular motion, unlike the gait of a human. The hunter
could see this despite the darkness that surrounded them.
“Jerusalem, what on yearth is this critter, anyway?” muttered the
hunter, in amazement. “He stands on his feet like a man, and he walks
with the waddle of a b’ar.”
Boone, stout woodman as he was, tried in courage, a man that laughed
at danger and faced death coolly and without shrinking, felt a cold
shiver come over him as he watched the movements of the mysterious
being who was so free in his actions and so sparing of his words.
The old hunter could not understand the peculiar feeling that was so
gradually stealing over him. The hair upon his head seemed ready to
bristle with fright.
“I feel as if I had jumped into an ice-cold river,” muttered Boone,
with a half-shiver.
For a moment he took his eyes from the dark form behind him; when he
looked again, the form was gone. Naught before him broke the denseness
of the gloom.
The hunter rubbed his eyes in wonder.
“Jerusalem!” he muttered, “is it a spook after all?” The hair upon his
head rose in fright as the thought crossed his mind.
Then Boone proceeded cautiously onward.
A few paces and he stood upon the river’s bank. The waters of the
stream, now low--it was in the summer-time--were some feet below the
surface of the bank. One walking by the side of the water would be
concealed from the view of any one on the level plain above, by the
overhanging bank.
Here was an easy solution to the mystery of the strange disappearance
of Boone’s silent friend. He had stepped from the level down the slope
to the side of the stream, and thus hid by the bank had seemed to
disappear.
But Boone was loth to adopt this explanation of the riddle; besides, as
he stepped down the bank to the water’s edge, he could not distinguish
the dark form of the stranger anywhere.
“It was a spook, sure,” muttered Boone; “but, I may as well be making
tracks for the settlement.”
Concealed by the bank, Boone proceeded onward until his progress was
stopped by an unexpected obstacle.
He had come to the watering-place for the Indian horses. A road had
been cut through the bank to the water, and in the road sat a brawny
Shawnee warrior.