Footprints in the Forest Part 24

When Otto Relstaub had finished his story, Jack's eyes sparkled and he again grasped the hand of his friend.

"It is the most wonderful experience of which I have ever heard. I thought my escape from the Sauks was remarkable, and so it was, but it can't compare with yours. I never knew of the Indians being fooled in that manner; but show me where you have spent the last day or two."

"It ishn't as fine as your cabin dot is home in Martinsville, but it ish de best dot I can find."

"You're mighty lucky to find anything," was the remark of Jack Carleton, following his young friend toward the rocky ridge which had attracted the notice of the Shawanoe some time before.

"I wonder whether Deerfoot will find it?" said he, musing over the strange experience of his friend; "I suppose you have left plenty of footprints which he is likely to see and which will guide him to the right spot."

"I vos going to leave dis place to-nights or to-morrow mornings," said Otto, quite proud of the part he was acting as guide of his old friend, "but d.i.n.ks dot I stays till I feels like being better."

Before Otto Relstaub could finish his remark, the crack of two rifles cut short his words. At the same moment the whistling bullets and the war whoops left no doubt of the explanation. Several p.a.w.nees had been prowling along their trail, when the sight of the boys moving away led them to believe they had taken the alarm and were trying to escape.

Firing hastily, they broke into a run, with less than a hundred yards separating pursuer and pursued.

"Fly, Otto!" called his companion; "if you can run, now is the time; they're on our heels!"

As the German lad knew the right course, he was obliged to take the lead, while Jack Carleton was behind him. The latter was much the fleeter of foot, and it made him desperate to observe what seemed the sluggish movements of his guide.

"Hurry!" he added, pushing him forward; "they will be on us in a minute and then it's all up!"

"Yaw; I ish doing petter as nefer I couldn't does," replied Otto, who in his excitement dropped back into his crooked words and sentences.

"You ain't half trying, I've seen you do twice as well."

"Yaw; but I d.i.n.ks--"

The catastrophe came. Like the immortal John Smith, Otto was so busy with his eyes that he had no opportunity to watch where his feet led him. He sprawled forward on his hands and knees, and Jack Carleton narrowly missed going headlong over him. The situation was too critical to laugh, and Otto, thoroughly scared, was up again in an instant, plunging forward with unabated ardor.

The p.a.w.nees lost no time, and the peril was of the most imminent nature.

But having regained his feet, Otto dashed forward with the utmost speed he could command, so that the frightened Jack could not find fault with his tardiness.

The leader was following no beaten path or clearly marked trail, but was heading toward a point half way up the ridge, where a ma.s.s of rocks rose higher than any others near them, and among which the boy had found a refuge from the storm that drove him thither--a storm which it may be necessary to say, was so local in its character, that Deerfoot and his friends, who were not far off, saw nothing of the elemental disturbance.

The p.a.w.nees, who were seeking to surround the boys at the moment they started, came from different points, all converging so as to shut in the fugitives, as they would have done had a little more time been given them. As it was, when Jack and Otto faced the rocks, their enemies in their rear, one or two were uncomfortably close.

Indeed, there was one fierce warrior nigh enough to interpose across the path of the fugitives. Otto had taken a dozen steps or so after climbing to his feet, when the savage, brandishing his tomahawk in one hand while he grasped his gun in the other, shouted continually some exclamation which was clearly a command to halt, but which, it need not be said, was disobeyed.

Quick to see that he was wasting his breath, the red man, with a couple of bounds, placed himself so directly in front of Otto that the latter could not pa.s.s him without turning to one side.

"There's no use of fooling with that fellow," was the conclusion of Jack Carleton, raising the hammer of his gun, without slackening his speed; but before he could bring the weapon to his shoulder, Otto stopped short, throwing up his gun at the same moment, and let drive at the warrior, who could not have had any suspicion that he was in danger until the red tongue shot from the muzzle almost in his face, and then scarce time was given him to know what was coming when his interest in earthly things ceased.

With an ear-splitting screech, he flung up both arms, the gun and tomahawk flying several feet in the air from the spasmodic movement, and he went forward on his face, head and shoulders being thrown so far back that his chest struck the ground first, chin and forehead following like the rockers of a chair.

"Well done!" called out Jack. "Push ahead and we shall be safe."

Suddenly Otto slackened and turned about with a blanched face.

"Mein gracious! I d.i.n.ks I hef got de wrong road!"

Jack was in despair; then he was angered.

"Go on; go _somewhere_; don't stop here!" he said.

And he almost shoved him off his feet in his desperate impatience.

"Vosn't dot fooney?" said Otto, breaking into another desperate run; "it is the road arter all."

Not only at that moment, but for some time previous, it must have been in the power of the p.a.w.nees to bring down both boys by shots from their guns. The intervening s.p.a.ce was so brief, that all could not have missed, and when Otto made his last dash for safety, Jack Carleton was in such a direct line behind him, that a single well-aimed bullet would have laid both low; but the Indians, confident there was no escape for the boys, determined to make both prisoners.

Deerfoot, the Shawanoe, always referred to the action of the red men at that time as almost unexplainable. They must have known that the youths had friends close by, and that one of them was the young warrior whom they believed to be in league with the Evil One. The footprints which had guided them through the forest told that fact. There were only four p.a.w.nees (one of whom was the warrior whom Deerfoot and Hay-uta held a prisoner the night before, and then allowed to go), and as the number of fugitives, if such they may be called, was the same, the advantage certainly could not be claimed by the hostiles. What common sense directed was for them to shoot the boys, and then withdraw, at least until re-enforcements arrived. Their failure to do so was a piece of shortsightedness which neither the Shawanoe nor Sauk understood.

The respite gained by the quick shot of Otto Relstaub was provident; it threw every one of their pursuers behind them, and the redoubled efforts of the lads carried them swiftly over the remaining s.p.a.ce.

"Here we ish!" exclaimed the panting Otto, almost falling again.

"Where?" demanded the terrified friend; "I don't see anything like the cave you told me about."

"It ish de pest dot we have," replied the German lad, noticing the disappointment of his companion.

CHAPTER XXIX.

A FIGHT AND A RETREAT.

That which Otto had called a cave proved really no cave at all. Up the winding ascent the fugitives sped, until opposite a lip or shelf, which projected from the rocks on their left. It extended forward three or four feet, rudely sloping away like the forepiece of a cap, but the concavity below was less than half that depth. Jack expected to find a retreat ten or fifteen feet deep. As it was, there was barely room to screen themselves from the flying bullets, and had the rain been driven from the opposite direction when Otto first sought refuge there it would have given no protection at all.

Jack was half disposed to continue his flight over the ridge, but fearful of the greater peril to which they would be exposed, and alarmed by the knowledge that their enemies were almost on their heels, he darted to the left, and stood with his back against the rocky wall, grasping his loaded and c.o.c.ked rifle, ready to fire on appearance of the pursuers. Otto did the same, and, taking a position beside him, began reloading his weapon.

The hostiles did not stop, but hastened up the rough gorge, and in a twinkling the foremost dashed into sight. Quick as Jack was in bringing his gun to his shoulder, some one else antic.i.p.ated him. The red man bounded high in air, with the inevitable death shriek, and went over backward, his body pierced clean through with an arrow driven with resistless force from the bow of Deerfoot, the Shawanoe.

This checked the rush of the other two, who found, what they ought to have known before, that the "Evil One" was on hand. They turned and ran at break-neck speed down the slope, vanishing with a swiftness that rendered it almost impossible for Deerfoot to bring down either of them had he been so disposed. Rapid as was their charge up the slope, their descent was a great deal more rapid.

Directly behind the arrow came Deerfoot, landing in the presence of the youths with such suddenness that Jack half raised his gun under the belief that he was an enemy.

Otto was so startled that he spilled the powder he was pouring into the barrel of his rifle, and the young Shawanoe smiled and said:

"My brother is not glad to see Deerfoot."

"I ishn't! you shust waits till I gots dis gun loaded."

Working rapidly, he soon had the charge rammed home and the weapon primed for action. Then, leaning it against the wall, he impulsively threw his arms around the neck of the Shawanoe and kissed him on the cheek.

Jack Carleton was horrified, supposing the young warrior would be offended, but he smiled in a way which showed he was pleased with the honest fellow, who was not ashamed to show the affection he felt.

During the brief moments spent in pleasant interchange, Deerfoot was never quiet. His eyes were continually flitting hither and thither, and he glanced right and left, as though expecting some person or the occurrence of some event. The fact was, that, although the Indians who made the rash attack had fled, the Shawanoe was by no means satisfied.