Here in this hidden path the forest noises became remote. Even the birds ceased to twitter overhead, and the slightest stirring of the treetops made us drop to earth in expectancy of attack. Yet when the attack came we were taken completely by surprize.
We had progressed some five miles from the beginning of the trail, and had reached a point where it forked—or perhaps I should say was joined by a second trail. At any rate the united trails continued into a beaver swamp, where they disappeared. We scouted the swamp, but could see no signs of a path across it; and Peter led the way to the right, intending to encircle it.
The beavers had thinned the timber hereabout and cut down most of the brushwood, so that we walked at ease between wide-spaced trunks. We were all of us alert, but the first warning that we were under observation was a green-feathered arrow which sang between Peter and me and buried its head in the ground.
"Don'dt fire, whatefer you do," muttered Peter as he threw himself behind the nearest trunk.
Ta-wan-ne-ars and I copied his example. I found myself on the right of the three. The others had selected standing trunks. I had chosen, perforce, a fallen giant which some forest wind had overthrown. I crawled along the trunk into the tangle of roots, and from there gained a clump of bushes growing about the hole from which it had been torn. I could see Ta-wan-ne-ars crouched behind his trunk, with his musket beside him and his tomahawk in his hand. Peter was concealed from view.
The green-feathered arrow had ceased quivering and I idly followed the angle of its inclination. My eyes traveled forward—and focused upon a hideous painted face which peered from a screen of sumac.
The watcher motioned behind him, and a second painted visage glided to his side. Ta-wan-ne-ars, seeking to draw their fire, thrust out the end of his scalp-lock, and the first watcher instantly drew bow and sent an arrow that grazed the trunk.
Nothing happened for a while. The Keepers waited, and Ta-wan-ne-ars and Peter remained under cover. I surveyed the situation. From the hole in which I lay a depression of the ground ran eastward past the lair of the Cahnuagas in the sumac clump. I started to crawl up it, dragging my musket after me, but before I had gone a dozen feet I was obliged to abandon the gun in order to insure that my progress should be silent.
Ta-wan-ne-ars, aware that I was up to something, called to Peter, and the two of them executed a series of feints which kept the Keepers occupied. When I was parallel with the sumac clump I sought shelter under a patch of wild blackberry-bushes. Cautiously parting my screen—which was exceedingly thorny and painful—I was able to view the Keepers from the rear. They were ensconced in what was evidently a permanent sentry-post. Beyond the sumacs was a low bark hut masked with boughs. At their feet were muskets. The bows they held were employed for the purpose of adding mystery to their attack.
So accustomed were the Keepers to the overpowering spell of the Doom Trail, which weakened the nerves of all trespassers, that they were wholly confident of the success of their tactics in first frightening us and afterward running us down at pleasure. They stood behind the sumac screen, their bushy feather head-dresses close together, grins of anticipation cracking the paint on their evil faces.