We ran as I had seldom run before, not fast and slow, but faster and ever faster, with every ounce of strength and wind. The yelps of the Shawnees died away behind us again, and I think we had distanced them when we emerged from the forest gloom into a belt of sunshine several miles wide. One of those awful wind-storms, to which the New World is exposed, had come this way, and wreaked its curious spite by striking down everything in its immediate front. As clean as a knife-blade it had hewed its path, leaving miles of prostrate timber where formerly had been a lordly forest. And across this natural abattis we must make our way in the open!
There was nothing else for it, and we plunged in, climbing in and out of the wreckage, seldom able to go faster than a walk. We were a scant musket-shot from the forest edge when the Shawnees appeared and howled their glee. They could not gain on us, but they were uncomfortably close as we entered the standing timber on the far side of the dead-fall; and we knew that we could not run much farther. My eyes were starting from my head as we dipped into a shallow glade that was threaded by a deep and narrow stream. Boulders dotted its course. Ten yards away an immense tulip-tree overhung it.
I flung myself down for a quick drink, thinking to hurry on. But on regaining my feet I saw Tawannears in close debate with Corlaer. The Dutchman nodded his head, and dropped into the water, which was up to his middle. I made to follow him, but Tawannears motioned me to hold my position, peering the while at our back-trail, alert for a sign of our enemies. I stared from him to Corlaer in growing amazement. The Dutchman clambered up the opposite bank and tramped heavily to a series of stones and small boulders. He planted his wet, muddy moccasins on the first stones, then carefully walked backward in his own footsteps into the river and recrossed to our side.
"Come," said Tawannears, and he dropped into the river-bed besides Corlaer.
Perforce, I followed suit, wondering what mad scheme they were up to.
The Seneca led us downstream into the shadow of the tulip-tree. Here the creek overran a flat stone, which came just to water-level. Tawannears stepped onto it, handed his musket to me, caught hold of a low tree-branch and in a trice had swung himself onto the limb. I reached him our three guns, and whilst he worked back toward the trunk, holding them under one arm, I scrambled up beside him. Corlaer came after me, his weight bearing the limb down almost to the water's surface, so that for an instant I thought it must break. But the resilient wood upheld him, and we all three gained the crotch of the fifteen-foot bole. There was ample room, and the thick leafage gave us cover as we settled ourselves to see what the Shawnees would make of the lure we had set for them.
Nothing happened for so long that I wondered whether they had seen through the ruse, and were plotting to catch us in our lair. But presently a feathered head was advanced from the low-growing foliage of the bank and studied the footprints Corlaer had trampled on the farther bank. A fierce painted face was turned toward us momentarily. Then the lean body, clad only in breachclout and moccasins, slipped into the water without a ripple and waded across. The Shawnee crept up the bank until he came to the prints of the Dutchman's wet feet on the stones. At that he turned, with a quick gesture of command, and a string of savage figures dodged after him. We counted thirty-one, most of them armed with muskets. They disappeared into the woods on the opposite bank at a fast dog-trot.
Tawannears dropped from the tulip-tree without a word.
"Where now?" I asked.
He smiled. Never let anyone tell you the Indian has no sense of humor.