The Lost Trail, Edward Sylvester Ellis [great reads txt] 📗

and shoulder of the warrior, as he flung them partly over a limb to help draw himself upward. Without a second's delay the youth fired, his view being much less obstructed than was the care with his friend in the other tree.

An ear-splitting screech broke the stillness, and the wounded Miami came tumbling downward as though every possible support had given way beneath him. To the watchful lads it looked as if he struck nothing at all in his descent, but fell with the swiftness of a cannon-ball, until the intervening logs shut him from sight.

"I dinks some dings dropped," said Otto, with a grin; "mebbe he don't try to fool us some more agin, don't it?"

Jack made no comment, but, as was his rule, reloaded his gun with utmost haste, dreading all the time a rush from their enemies. It may be set down as singular that something of the kind did not take place, since the assailants must have known it could not fail to be effective.

The sagacious Deerfoot seemed to believe that his position was no longer tenable, for, instead of staying where he was, he began descending, apparently in panic of fear, lest he should share the fate of the other red man. So far as he could, he kept the trunk of the tree between him and the youthful marksmen until beyond all danger of being harmed.

Jack saw just enough of the movement to understand its meaning, and he smiled grimly.

"After doing what you have done, you ought to take the part of leader and draw off the warriors."

The young Kentuckian stood near the middle of the enclosure glancing upward in different directions while reloading his piece, for he understood too well the necessity of unremitting vigilance whenever the American Indian takes a hand in proceedings.

Otto was not behind him in that respect. He walked softly around the fort close to the walls, attentively listening for sounds that would give some knowledge of what was going on outside. At intervals he stopped and with his knife gouged the wood, where it seemed thinner than usual, but in every case found the thickness too great to be pierced.

Just beneath the spot where the butt of the tree rested on the upper edge of the wall, he stopped Once more and pressed his ear against the logs. He stood fully a minute, when, without moving his head, he looked sideways at his friend, who was watching him. The expression of his face was so significant that Jack knew he had made a discovery of importance.

"What is it?" he asked.

Otto motioned for him to keep quiet. Jack stepped forward in front of him.

As Otto was looked at him without speaking, he also pressed his ear against the logs, with a view of learning what was going on.

Every one knows that wood is a good conductor of sound, and, though in this case there were several layers of logs through which the noise passed, the second listener at once suspected the truth.

The scratching of the bark indicated that some one was carefully climbing up the inclined tree.

"That is to be their next move," muttered. Jack, hastily stepping back to the centre of the space; "if they make a rush over that bridge they will be down in a twinkling—"

Otto kept his position, with his ear still glued to the logs, and not yet certain what the noise meant.

Just as Jack looked upward he saw, to his amazement, the head and front of the huge black bear coming up the inclined tree with the intent purpose of entering the interior. It instantly occurred to the youth that it was the same daring bruin that came so near attacking them a short while before.

He has used this place as his den and means to return to it; the Indians have seen him prowling around, and placed the tree so as to temp him to climb upward on it.

The beast advanced until he could look downward on the couple, and then, gazing only a second or two, he backed out of sight and dropped to the ground with a strange, chuckling growl.

At the same instant a feeling of unutterable chagrin came over the lad who witnessed the maneuver, for, just a breath too late, he comprehended the shrewd trick by which he had been outwitted. Confused by the unexpected sight, he failed to note that the creature was not a bear at all, but a Shawanoe warrior skillfully disguised as much.

With the skin of one of the beasts gathered over his head and shoulders, he had made his way up the support, peered at the defenders, and then withdrawn before the watchful Jack could tumble him to the earth with the bullet that would have pierced his body had five seconds more been given in which to aim and fire.

CHAPTER XIII A MESSAGE

Jack's chagrin was deepened the more he reflected upon the singular occurrence. Had he been outwitted by some skillfully-executed trick of the Indians, he would have accepted it as a mishap liable to overthrow the most experienced ranger of the woods; but he felt he ought to have known on the instant that no real bear would have attempted anything of the kind.

There was not a phase of the artifice which was not a reproach to him. Had the beast used the enclosure as a den or a retreat—a thing of itself incredible—the evidence of that fact would have been noticed the moment the boys climbed within. Then the likelihood of his clambering up the inclined tree in the presence of a war party of Shawanoes and Miamis, who had laid it for that very purpose, was too grotesquely absurd to be thought of with patience.

"Maybe it is as well," he said, with an effort to extract some consolation from the blunder; "for perhaps it will lead them to repeat the trick."

"Mine gracious! why didn't he drop down onto mine bead?" said Otto, stepping hastily away from his position; "he would have mashed me out as flat as—-as—as a big tree itself."

"I don't see why they didn't form a procession of bears and walk right over among us? We would have stood still and allowed them to hug us to death."

Admitting the only explanation that presented itself, Jack and Otto were not yet able fully to account for the proceeding. The labor of dragging the fallen trunk and lifting the butt to the wall, seemed too great to suppose it was to be used only to allow one of the Indians to climb to the top and peer over upon the boys beneath. The same thing could be accomplished by ascending one of the trees and avoiding the peril to which some of them had been exposed.

But, beside all that, what in reality was gained by taking a peep at the youths? The assailants knew they were there, and it could not matter a jot in what particular manner they were employing themselves. They could do nothing that could give those on the outside the slightest concern. It was the defenders whose interests required the anticipation of the movements of the warriors.

"I can't understand it," said Jack, standing close to his friend and talking in a low voice.

"So ain't I—harks!"

They listened a full minute, but the silence could not have been more profound. A gentle wind stirred the leaves overhead, and the tops of the trees nearest them could be seen slightly swaying against the clear sky beyond. The murmur of the great forest was like the voice of silence itself while the almost inaudible murmur of the Mississippi, sweeping so near, made itself manifest the first time since they had turned at bay.

The deep quiet was more impressive than the whoops and screeches of the warriors would have been. Under such circumstances, it boded mischief, and the utter uncertainty of its nature almost unsettled the remarkable courage both up to that moment had displayed.

"I hears nodings," added Otto; "I'mebbe don't go to sleep and wait for the night to come."

"Night is a good many hours off," replied Jack, with an uneasy glance at the sky, which showed him the sun had not yet reached meridian; "they can beat any people in the world waiting, when they have a mind to do so, but there's been no necessity of halting at all. If they had followed up over the logs it would have been all ended by this time."

"Yaw; they would have tumbled all over us, like a pig lot of trees falling down, but now I dinks they waits."

"Why will they do that?"

"If dey climbs over like as dey didn't does, don somepody git hurt, but if dey holds on till night den we'll have to climb over and falls on 'em."

This was Otto's manner of expressing what was inevitable, in case the besiegers should conclude to wait for the hour, which could not be very distant, when the defenders must lose all power of resistance.

The two did not forget to keep a continuous guard over the "watch-towers" of the enemy. Despite the repulse that had followed their attempts, it was by no means uncertain that they would not repeat them. The success of the bear trick was likely to tempt them to another essay in the same direction.

Otto Relstaub was leaning against the solid logs, his position such that the sun, which was now near meridian, shone directly upon him. His friend was almost immediately opposite—the two looking in each other's face, and exchanging words in low tones.

All at once the German became sensible of something cool just behind his neck.

"Vot ain't dot?" he said, putting up his hand as though to brush away some insect. Striking nothing, he turned to look.

"O-oh-oh!" he said, with a wondering expression, and an expansion of his big, honest eyes.

"There's an opening behind you," remarked his friend, moving hastily across to where he stood.

"Yaw; I sees him. Where's he been hiding himself when I voon't looking for him not a little while ago."

It certainly was curious that both boys should have made such a minute examination of the interior without finding the crevice between a couple of the logs, large enough to admit the passage of several bullets, and through which it would have been an easy matter for their enemies to shoot him who stood immediately in front.

The opening was some six inches wide, and no more than an eighth of an inch in height, resembling the crevice through which the captain looks out upon the enemy from the turret of a monitor. The fact that the red men had made no use of it was proof they did not suspect its existence, though that did not lessen the wonder of Otto that he had failed to find it himself, when making search.

"I see!" suddenly exclaimed Jack, who was attentively examining the place. "No wonder you missed it, for it was closed up. You must have rubbed one of your long ears against the stick which fits it so closely."

The piece with which it had been closed lay on the ground, at the feet of the boys, and made clear why they had failed to find that for which they had hunted so carefully.

Jack cut the stick apart with his knife and reinserted one half with a view of rendering it less liable to attract the notice of the besiegers. Then, quite sure that it was still unknown to them, he leaned forward with his eye to the opening.

"While I'm peeping here keep a lookout elsewhere, Otto."

His friend nodded, to signify he would be obeyed, and then Jack took a survey of his surroundings.

It so happened that he stood nearly under the tree which leaned against the wall, and thus gained a good view. He certainly saw enough to interest the most indifferent spectator. Five painted Indian warriors were seen standing around what seemed to be a dancing bear, who was gesticulating with his fore paws. Suddenly he cast off the shaggy hide and revealed the redskin who bad made the audacious ascent on the log in his disguise and peeped over on the boys below.

He seemed to be talking with his friends, while the whole half dozen were gesticulating with great energy, though, in spite of their excitement, their words were spoken so low that our friends could hear little more than the jumbling murmur of their voices.

No doubt more Indians were close at hand, but Jack saw none. He stealthily removed the other part of the stick, and thereby widened his view considerably, but he still failed to discover anything more. His vision took in the tree up which Deerfoot