Then Lark parted the tangled bushes with his hand. Boone and Kenton saw that the trunk of the oak was hollow. It contained a cavity, fully large enough to afford a secret refuge to the three, and the bushes closing behind them after they had entered the hollow oak completely concealed them from sight.
“This hyer is an old hidin’-place o’ mine,” said Lark, as they stood within the hollow. “I diskivered it one day when I shot a b’ar nigh hyer. The b’ar made for this bit of bush. He had his den in this very tree-trunk. I followed him up an’ that’s the way I diskivered it.”
The shade of night was now fast descending upon the earth, and darkness was vailing in the forest and river with its inky mantle.
“Now, we’ll scout into the village,” said Boone; “we’ll meet hyer ag’in in the morning—that is, if the savages don’t captivate us.”
“Agreed,” responded the two others, and then all three left the hollow oak.
With a silent pressure of the hand they separated, each one picking out a path for himself, but all tending in the direction of the village of Ke-ne-ha-ha.
The three hunters had been gone some ten or fifteen minutes when a dark form stood by the oak.
He plunged his eyes carefully into the darkness that surrounded him, as if fearful of being watched.
At last, apparently satisfied that no human eye looked upon his movements, carefully and cautiously he separated the bushes in front of the oak, and entered the hollow space within the tree. The bushes closed with scarce a rustle behind him.
The insects of the night who had been disturbed and awed to silence by the tread of the light foot, that prowled so cautiously along the dim aisles of the forest, began again their nocturnal cries.