Just beyond, a great forest swept down the water's edge on both sides, and the banks lay in shadow for a hundred feet on either side. Seth uttered some low order in the Indian language to Dead Chief, and he at once turned the bow of the canoe toward the shore, and they shot up under the dark bank in exactly such a place as the one in which the canoe had been concealed when the Yankee went out upon his scout. The forest seemed to be alive on every side of them, the furious shrieks of the Indians echoing and re-echoing among the huge old trees. Seth snatched a hatchet and knife and bounded up the bank, closely followed by the others. The cries told them that their enemies were about them on every hand, eager for their blood.
"Tree!" said Seth. "We can't afford tew show in an open canoe in the moonlight. Mout git hit, yew know! This way!"
He plunged into the woods, heading from the river, and ran for nearly a hundred yards before he stopped. Then selecting a tree of the right size, he mounted hastily. His example was followed by the others, and not a moment too soon, for the gathering cries told that the Indians were being guided to the spot where the canoe had been seen by those who had fired into it. The Yankee climbed to the crotch of the tree, selected a convenient place and sat down coolly, resting his feet upon the branch beneath. He felt tolerably safe, for, in the dark woods, trailing them was an impossibility. As the shouts came nearer he only grinned widely and threw back his head for a yawn, when, to his utter consternation, he saw a pair of gleaming eyes looking into his, not three feet away!
CHAPTER V.
IN A TREE-TOP.
The Yankee looked hard at the gleaming orbs close to his own, and could just make out a dark body stretched along the limbs. He was far from liking the appearance of the affair. It might be an Indian, or it was just as likely to be a panther. If the latter, a struggle with him would bring the Indians upon him, whose footsteps already sounded along the bank. He loosened his knife in its sheath, though he well knew how powerless he would be in a tree-top, fighting against an animal which could light like a feather upon a bending bough and leap to another with all the quickness of a cat.
"Jehosaphat!" he muttered. "What'n thunder will I do now? I guess I'm gobbled 'up this time, shure. I wish I had a pike, I dew. Thunder and lightning, this ain't pooty."
The dark object upon the limb did not move, and there was no time to be lost. Seth determined to know what it was at all hazards. Thrusting his hand into his pouch, he drew out a box of punk, struck a spark and ignited the whole piece. As the light flashed up he caught a glimpse of an Indian, extended at full length along the limb. Dropping the fire he hurled himself downward, falling upon the prostrate figure and clasped his long arms about its throat tightly, with his bony knuckles pressed hard against the windpipe. So quickly was it done that the Indian had only time to utter a smothered cry before his breath was stopped completely. The limb bent and swayed under the weight of the heavy bodies, and they began to slide downward. A fall of twenty feet was not what Seth wished for, but, locked in the embrace of the savage, he could not help himself unless he let go his hold upon the throat, and then the cries of the Indian would bring his friends to the rescue. They slid down, turned completely over once, and fell with a dull sound upon the moss-covered knoll at the foot of the tree, the Yankee uppermost. A fall from that distance would have been likely to shock the savage some, but add to that the avoirdupois of a man weighing as much as this Yankee, and the damage is likely to be greater. All the remaining breath of the Indian went out like the flame of an expiring lamp, and he lay senseless under the body of Spink, who was somewhat confused by the fall.