The White Squaw Part 25

With the bright sky, however, there came a corresponding lightness over the young man's spirit, and a doubt arose in his mind as to the guilt of his former friend.

"I cannot believe all that he has been accused of. Perhaps he is not guilty of carrying off Sansuta. I always trusted him. Why should he be so evil without a suspicion having crossed my mind that he was so? He has not been seen since she disappeared; but yet Crookleg might be the guilty one. If all I have been told be true, and Warren be the man, he shall bitterly pay for his crime. But I will not believe it until I am convinced 'tis so."

It will be seen that Nelatu was still a firm friend, ready to doubt even villainy.

Suddenly the trail he was following came to an end.

A deep black lagoon was before his feet.

How to cross it?

Its unrippled bosom showed it to be deep.

Here and there jagged cypress stumps, to which clung drooping parasites, stood out of it.

Nelatu felt that the trail he had followed was purposely terminated at the edge of the lake, doubtless to be discovered on its opposite sh.o.r.e.

How to cross it? That was the question.

Stooping, he scanned the sh.o.r.e, but failed to trace any further evidence of the footsteps of man.

He was on the point of retracing his path in order to look for a trail, when he was arrested by a faint sound, as from a movement in the water.

It was very faint, but unmistakeable in its character.

It was the stroke of an oar!

He strained his eyes to catch a view of the boat which he felt sure was traversing the lake.

After some time spent in the endeavour, his scrutiny was rewarded.

A strange tableau was revealed to him.

At a distance appeared the shadowy form of a canoe, in which two figures were seated.

The fog, like a dull silver veil, was still spread over the lagoon, and his efforts to recognise the phantom-like forms were unavailing.

The intervening curtain of vapour baffled even the keen eye-sight of an Indian.

He hallooed to the spectral figures until the swamp re-echoed his shouts.

In vain!

No response came from the silent voyagers.

He fancied that the measured pulling of the oars for an instant ceased, but so dim and unreal did it all appear, that he began to doubt the evidence of his senses.

As he gazed the canoe glided silently out of sight.

Muttering an angry adjuration at the ghostly oarsman, he threw himself upon the ground.

Overcome with the fatiguing journey, and dispirited by his fruitless search, he soon fell into a deep slumber.

The last film of the fog was now dispelled by the powerful rays of the sun.

Birds sang in the trees above him, and from the black waters of the lagoon a huge caiman crawled up the banks to bask in the noontide glare.

Still Nelatu slumbered.

He slept until the meridian heat had pa.s.sed, and the evening approached, seeming to lull all nature into silence.

The young man's sleep was placid. With his head pillowed on his arm, he lay like one dead.

From this sweet unconsciousness he awoke with a start.

A rippling sound as of some craft cleaving the water, once more fell upon his ear.

Had the phantom canoe returned?

A glance answered the question.

Drifting near the sh.o.r.e was an empty dug-out.

The broken manilla rope, dragging at the stern, told him why it was adrift.

Without hesitation he plunged into the water, and in a few strokes reached the straying craft.

Scrambling into it, he seized an oar found lying in its bottom, and paddled back to the place whence he had started. Placing his gun ready beside him, he again paddled off, and rowed into the centre of the lake, steering his course, as nearly as he could remember, in the direction which, in the morning, he had observed the canoe to take.

The spot, as he had marked it, was near a huge cypress tree.

It proved to be at a greater distance than he thought, and the sun had well sunk in the western sky before he arrived at it.

Once there he came to a stop. Those he sought had evidently either gone further out into the open water of the lagoon or had made for one or other of the numerous narrow ca.n.a.ls which debouched into it.

Selecting that which appeared of the greatest width, he plied his oar and advanced towards it.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A SMOKE INTERRUPTED.

Although Cris Carrol was absent from the immediate neighbourhood of the settlement, he was none the less informed of what had happened since his departure.

Several of the colonists, alarmed at the prospect of affairs, had quietly left Tampa Bay, and, meeting with the hunter, had told him of the events that had transpired within the past month.

The backwoodsman's foresight had not deceived him.