The Hunters of the Ozark Part 25

Taking his friend at his word, Fred broke into a slow, easy trot, not much more rapid than an ordinary walking gait, but one which they could keep up a long time, where the ground was not too rough. Terry of course did the same, and they covered fully two miles in that manner, when they slackened their pace before an extensive rise of the ground. But for that, they would have gone much further at the same speed.

Some fifteen minutes were spent in clambering up the stony incline, when they descended into a broad valley, the path still rough and difficult of pa.s.sage. They recognized a dull but increasing roar as made by a rapid torrent, and ere long stopped on the edge of a stream fifty feet wide, which dashed and foamed over the rocks, breaking into eddies, and agitated pools, falling in foamy cataracts and splashing forward again with a rollicking freedom that formed one of the prettiest and most romantic sights on which they had ever looked.

Directly at their feet was a curious formation. By some means at a remote day, a number of hard stones had been flung downward and given a spinning motion, which, acting on the softer sandstone beneath, had begun hollowing it out, as if by the chisel of an engraver. This strange operation had gone on for years, until a bowl a dozen feet across and half as deep had been formed. It was almost mathematically round, very smooth and with a tapering shape to the bottom that made the resemblance to an enormous punch bowl strikingly accurate.

This formation (which in accordance with the taste prevailing in all parts of our country, should be christened the "Devil's Punch Bowl"), was full of limpid water, fed by a slight overflow from above and overrunning and flowing calmly over the lower rim. In the bottom lay three stones, looking like cannon b.a.l.l.s. These were the tools with which the stream had carved the Devil's Punch Bowl. Having done their work, they were resting in the bottom, where they had lain for a period that could not be guessed.

Out beyond, a thin sheet of the water hung like a transparent curtain over the edge of the rocks. It was so smooth and unruffled that it seemed stationary, like a film of gla.s.s, but, after striking the stones below, it broke into foam, whirlpools and eddies, which helped to form as lovely and picturesque a scene as the most devoted lover of nature could long to see.

The picture was so pretty indeed that the boys stood for several minutes lost in admiration. They had never viewed any thing of the kind, and it was something that would always be a pleasant memory to them.

But, great as was their admiration, there was a startling question that came to them: how was this interesting stream to be crossed?

In front and up and down the bank, the eyes searched in vain for a ford.

It was idle to think of ferrying themselves over, while the cascades, pools, eddies and general "upsetting" of a broad deep stream, made its pa.s.sage as perilous as that of the rapids nearer home in which the two had come so near losing their lives.

"There is no possible way by which we can reach the other side," said Fred, after they had walked a few rods up and down the stream.

"I don't obsarve any way mesilf," was the response of Terry.

"But there _must_ be, for how could father and the rest have crossed?"

"They may have put up a bridge."

"But where is the bridge? There are no signs of any thing of the kind,"

said the bewildered Fred; "they couldn't have made a bridge without leaving it behind."

"The high water has swipt it away."

Fred stood surveying the stream and the banks, for several minutes, during which he once more walked back and forth, but he was right when he said that the place had never been spanned by even the simplest structure, for it could not have been done without leaving some traces behind.

This being the case, the mystery was greater than ever; for it was certain that at that hour their friends were many miles distant on the other side.

"This is a little ahead of any thing I ever heard tell of," remarked Fred, taking off his cap and scratching his head, after the fashion of Terry when he was puzzled.

"It couldn't be," ventured the latter, who also had his cap in his hand and was stirring up his flaxen locks, "that they carried a bridge along with 'em."

"Impossible!"

"That's what I thought, as me sicond cousin remarked whin they told him his uncle carried his shillaleh a half mile and pa.s.sed two persons without beltin' 'em over the head."

"There's something about this which I can not understand."

Terry turned and looked at him in his quizzical way and solemnly extended his hand. Fred shook it as he wished, though he was far from feeling in a sportive mood.

"They _must_ have crossed," he added, replacing his cap with some violence, compressing his lips and shaking his head in a determined way; "do you walk up the bank, while I make a search in the other direction; we _must_ find the explanation."

The proposition was acted upon, Terry clambering carefully along the slippery bank and over the rocks, until he was fully a hundred yards from his friend, who busied himself in doing the same thing in the opposite direction.

All at once the Irish lad shouted. Looking up to him, Fred saw that he was beckoning him to approach.

"I knew there must be something of the kind," thought Fred, who after much labor placed himself beside his friend.

To his disappointment, Terry had paused before the worst part of the series of cascades. It was at the broadest portion of the stream, where the falls, whirlpools, eddies and deep water would have turned back the most skillful swimmer.

"What do you mean?" asked the astonished Fred.

"I thought I'd show you the place where they _didn't_ cross," was his reply, and then he broke into the merriest laughter, as well he might, for he had solved the mystery.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE TERROR IN THE AIR.

"Do obsarve where the trail comes down to that big bowl?" asked Terry, pointing to the huge, circular cavity below them.

"Of course."

"Well, that's a mistake; _that isn't the right trail_."

Fred turned about, and jumped and ran back to the Devil's Punch Bowl, at a rate that threatened his neck. Stooping over, he carefully examined the path. He saw that his companion was right; the trail which they had followed to the edge of the stream was one that had been worn by animals in coming to and going from the Punch Bowl. You will admit that no better punch in the wide world could be furnished the dumb beasts than that which was thus freely given to them.

As if to confirm that which did not need confirming, a large buck at that moment appeared in the path, within a hundred feet of where Fred had straightened up, after examining the trail. He threw up his head on catching sight of the young hunter, gave one quick, inquiring stare and then whirled about and was off like a flash.

Fred Linden could have brought him down at the moment he wheeled had he chosen to do so, but he recalled his own proposition to Terry some time before, about firing such a shot. Indeed, since they had some of the cooked buffalo steak left, there was no call to use any more ammunition for game.

Terry Clark came laughing down the rocks, looking upon the whole business as one of the funniest of incidents, but to Fred it was any thing but a laughing matter. Time was becoming of the utmost value, and this divergence from the trail meant delay--a delay, too, whose length could not be guessed. If they had turned aside several miles back, it was more than likely that they would lose all the advantage gained by the laborious travel of the night before.

"How could we have made such a blunder?" asked Fred, his eyes wandering back over the path, as though searching for an explanation of the mistake; "I suppose at the point where the trails cross the direction isn't changed much and this is more distinct than the other. Terry, I can't see any thing about this to laugh at."

"I don't obsarve much of the same mesilf," said the other, whose face nevertheless was on abroad grin; "I wasn't laughing at yersilf, or the mistake we made."

"What was it then that amused you so much?"

"I was thinkin' how funny it looked to see the deer and bears and buffaloes and foxes and panthers all standing round that big bowl and winkin' at each ither while they drank their health."

"Terry, there's going to be trouble because of this blunder."

"What do ye signify be the same?"

"I believe that all the advantage we gained by traveling so hard last night is lost. When we follow this trail back until it reaches the main one, more than likely we shall meet the Winnebagos at that point, if they will not actually be between us and the camp in the Ozarks."

"I'm afeard it's not all a falsehood that ye are telling me," said Terry, with an expression in which there was nothing like a jest.

"Let's be off then."