THE TINKLE OF A BELL.
The examination of the shore of the creek had lasted but a few minutes,
when Terry Clark, pointing to the moist earth at their feet, called out
in some excitement:
"Do ye mind that now?"
There, sure enough, were the footprints of a cow that had entered the
stream from the same side on which the boys stood. The impressions could
be seen for some distance in the clear water, which in the middle of the
stream was no more than a yard deep, and they were plainly observed
where the animal had emerged on the other side.
"I don't suppose there is any difference in the tracks of cows, but I
guess, Terry, that we are safe in making up our minds we are on the
trail of Brindle."
"I'm thinking the same," replied the other, who was not only looking
across the creek, but into the woods beyond, as though he expected to
catch sight of the cow herself; "though it may be the one that crossed
there isn't the one that we're after."
Fred Linden was asking himself whether there was not some way in which
they could reach the other side without going to the trouble of removing
their shoes and leggins, and hunting a shallow portion, or allowing
their garments to become saturated. He exclaimed: "Why didn't I think of
it? There's our canoe!"
A number of these frail craft were owned in Greville, and Fred had a
fine one himself, which was only a short distance off. Three minutes
later the two reached it.
The barken structure was moored by means of a long rope to a tree a
considerable distance from the water, so that in case of one of those
sudden rises that sometimes took place, it would not be carried away by
the freshet. The boat was quickly launched, and a few strokes of the
paddle carried the two to the opposite bank of the stream.
"I wonder whether there is any danger of a rise," remarked Fred, as he
carried the rope to a tree twenty feet distant and made it fast to a
limb; "there was a good deal of thunder and lightning last night off to
the east."
"But the creek doesn't come from that way," said the surprised Terry;
"so what is the odds, as me father said he used to ask when the Injins
was on all sides of him, and a panther in the tree he wanted to climb,
and he found himself standing on the head of a rattlesnake."
"The creek winds through every point of the compass, so it doesn't make
much difference, as you say, where it rains, since it is sure to make a
rise; the only question is whether the rain was enough to affect the
creek so that it will trouble us."
"If it was goin' to do that, wouldn't it have done so before this?" was
the natural question of his companion.
"That depends on how far away the rain was."
The boys were not idle while talking. The canoe was soon made fast, and
then they resumed their hunt for the estray. They were not skillful
enough in woodcraft to trace the animal through the forest by the means
that an Indian would have used, but they were hopeful that by taking a
general direction they would soon find her. If she still had the bell
tied around her neck, there was no reason why they should not be
successful.
But while walking forward, Fred Linden asked a question of himself that
he did not repeat aloud.
"Has she been stolen?"
This query was naturally followed by others. It certainly was
unreasonable to think that a cow would leave her companions and
deliberately wander off, at the time she was milked twice daily. She
would speedily suffer such distress that she would come bellowing
homeward for relief. If she really was an estray, she had missed two
milkings--that of the previous night and the morning that succeeded.
It was certain, therefore, that if she was stolen, the thief had
attended to her milking. But who could the thief be? That was the
important question that Fred confessed himself unable to answer.
There had been occasional instances of white men who had stolen horses
from the frontier settlements, but the lad could recall nothing of the
kind that had taken place in that neighborhood; all of which might be
the case without affecting the present loss, since it was evident that
there must be a first theft of that nature.
But, somehow or other, Fred could not help suspecting that the red men
had to do with the disappearance of the animal. I have intimated in
another place that Greville had never been harmed by the Indians, who
were scattered here and there through the country, for there was no
comparison between them and the fierce Shawanoes, Wyandottes,
Pottawatomies and other tribes, whose deeds gave to Kentucky its
impressive title of the Dark and Bloody Ground; but among the different
bands of red men who roamed through the great wilderness west of the
Mississippi, were those who were capable of as atrocious cruelties as
were ever committed by the fierce warriors further east.
What more likely, therefore, than that a party of these had stolen the
cow and driven her away?
There were many facts that were in favor of and against the theory; the
chief one against it was that if a party of Indians had driven off one
cow, they would have taken more. Then, too, the soft earth that had
revealed the hoof tracks ought to have shown the imprint of moccasins.
You will see, therefore, that Fred could speculate for hours on the
question without satisfying himself. He was sorry that he and Terry had
not brought their guns with them, and was half inclined to go back. It
was not yet noon, and they had plenty of time in which to do so.
"Terry," said Fred, turning suddenly about and addressing his friend,
who was walking behind him, "we made a mistake in not bringing our
guns."
The Irish lad was about to answer when he raised his hand in a warning
way and said:
"Hist!"
Both stood as motionless as the tree trunks about them, all their
faculties centered in the one of hearing.
There was the low, deep roar which is always heard in a vast wood, made
by the soft wind stealing among the multitudinous branches, and which is
like the voice of silence itself. They were so far from the creek that
its soft ripple failed to reach them.
"I don't hear any thing," said Fred at the end of a full minute.
"Nor do I," said Terry.
"Why then did you ask me to listen?"
"I was thinkin' be that token that we might hear something."
"What made you think so?"
"The tinkle of a bell."
"What!" exclaimed the amazed Fred, "are you sure?"
"That I am; just as I was about to speak, I caught the faint sound--just
as we've both heard hundreds of times."
"From what point did it seem to come?"
His friend pointed due south.
"Strange it is that ye didn't catch the same."
"So I think; it may be, Terry, that you are mistaken, and you wanted to
hear the bell so much that the sound was in your fancy."
The lad, however, would not admit this. He was sure there had been no
mistake. Fred was about to argue further when all doubt was set at rest
by the sound of a cow-bell that came faintly but clearly through the
forest.
"You are right," said Fred, his face brightening up; "we are on the
track of old Brindle sure enough. It's mighty strange though how she
came to wander so far from home."
"She got lost I s'pose," replied Terry, repeating the theory that had
been hit upon some time before.
"It may be, but it is the first instance I ever heard of, where an
animal lost its way so easily."
The boys were in too high spirits, however, to try to explain that which
puzzled them. The cow was a valuable creature, being the only one that
belonged to the family with whom Terence lived, and who therefore could
ill afford her loss.
The friends had pushed perhaps a couple hundred yards further when
Terry called to Fred that he was not following the right course.
"Ye're bearing too much to the lift; so much so indaad that if ye kaap
on ye'll find yersilf lift."
"Why, I was about to turn a little more in that direction," replied the
astonished Fred; "you are altogether wrong."
But the other sturdily insisted that he was right, and he was so
positive that he stopped short, and refused to go another step in the
direction that his friend was following. The latter was just as certain
that Terry was amiss, and it looked as if they had come to a deadlock.
"There's only one way to settle it," said Fred, "and that is for each of
us to follow the route he thinks right. The cow can't be far off and we
shall soon find out who is wrong. The first one that finds Brindle shall
call to the other, and he'll own up what a stupid blunder he has made."
"Ye are speakin' me own sentiments," replied Terry, who kept looking
about him and listening as if he expected every moment that the cow
herself would solve the question. Fred Linden read the meaning of his
action, and he, too, wondered why it was that when both had plainly
caught the tinkle of the telltale bell, they should hear it no more.
Strange that when it had spoken so clearly it should become silent, but
such was the fact.
Little did either suspect the cause.