Just as the hunter came to the conclusion to try the desperate chance for escape that was yet open to him, a great black cloud came sailing over the face of the moon.
The silver rays hid by the cloud, darkness again vailed the earth.
Boone could just distinguish the figure of the Indian before him, and that was all.
“By hokey!” muttered the scout, in doubt, “I ought to be able to skulk around that red heathen in this hyar darkness, if it will only last!”
And then the old hunter looked searchingly at the heavens above him.
The cloud was passing slowly along the darkened vault above. In its track came another cloud fully as large and as black as the first.
“I kin do it,” muttered Boone, decidedly. “I know I kin do it; I kin get past that critter afore the moon shines out ag’in. I’ll risk it, anyway. It will be a narrow shave, but a miss is as good as a mile. So here goes.”
Slowly and cautiously, on his hands and knees, the daring woodman crept forward.
He gained the level of the bank, and in his course commenced to describe a semi-circle that would carry him wide of the squatting chief and yet bring him to the bank of the Scioto again.
Many an anxious glance the fugitive scout cast upward to the sky as he proceeded on his way.