First he looked to his right; before him was the open prairie; no hope there, of course. Then he looked to the left; there rolled the river. His eyes fell upon the little growth of timber on the opposite bank, which grew down to the edge the same as did that in which the hunter lay concealed.
“Thunder!” he cried, again communing with himself, “I mought have gone up on the other bank of the river, but then,” and he thought the matter over carefully, “I should be as bad off as I am now, for I couldn’t cross the river ag’in, without being seen any more that I can cross this glade. Jerusalem! whar are my ideas?” The guide racked his brains for a method to cross this hundred feet of open space guarded by the Indian. Just then the savage opened his mouth and indulged in a loud yawn.
“Oh! if he’d only go to sleep for jist two minutes, jist that long, an’ I’d send him to kingdom come, quicker’n a wink.”
But the savage, beyond yawning, evinced no desire or disposition to sleep.
The hunter bit his lips in desperation; his eyes wandering vacantly around, fell again upon the opposite bank of the river. Suddenly a smile stole over his features; he had an idea how to cross the glade, or if not to cross it, how, in military parlance, “to turn the enemy’s position.”
As we have said, the trees on the opposite side, as well as on the one on which the guide was hid, grew down to the edge of the bank; but, from the edge of the bank to the water of the river was at least six feet, the river being low; the washing of the rapid-rolling waters in time of the spring freshets and at other periods of high water had worn away the earth of the bank and tunneled it out to quite an extent underneath the brink.
“I’ve got it!” said the “Crow-Killer” in triumph; “if this ’ere bank is hollowed out underneath like t’other one, all I’ve got to do is to get down to the edge, get under the bank and crawl along till I reach the timber again; the bank will hide me snug as can be.”
So the “Crow-Killer” quietly withdrew from his position at the edge of the timber and wormed his way, snake-like, to the bank of the river. Then he carefully lowered himself off the bank into the soft clay-earth fringed by the rolling waters.
Then noiselessly he crept along, bent almost double, under the overhanging bank.