A little later, and he heard the sound of the savages’ footsteps as they hurried by him.
“Go it, ye varmints,” he muttered, “yer eyes have got to be sharper than I think they are, if ye can keep the run of my trail. Thar ain’t nothing like darkness to get a feller out of a fix as I knows on. It has saved you and I, Susannah, more’n a hundred times since we come into these parts.”
He patted the breech of his rifle affectionately, as if it was capable of understanding what he said. In truth he was as much attached to it as though it had been a human companion with whom he had spent an equal number of years.
“Well, I’m rid of them. But I ain’t a bit wiser than I was an hour ago. I ain’t got the least clue to what the varmints are up to. Thar’s something in the wind or there wouldn’t be such a snarl of ’em in these parts. There’ll be butchering and burning on the river somewhere afore morning, I’m afraid. I wish to mighty I knew where it was that they mean to begin their bloody work.”
He was silent for a few moments, turning the matter over in his mind, and trying to determine what he had better do.
“Let me see,” he broke out, at length, as he gazed about him, as if for the purpose of taking his true bearings. “That ere Wizard’s hole ain’t far from here. If he’s only in the right tune perhaps I can find out something by him. But, he’s a crafty old fox and sometimes I think he plays me false. He pretends to be a friend of the whites—says he tries to keep peace between them and the red-skins. But I’ve thought sometimes that he set ’em on to their devilish work. At any rate I’ll give him a call, and perhaps I can fine out something. I’m blind as a bat now, about what to do.”
For a few moments longer the scout remained in the attitude of listening, and then he threw his rifle over his shoulder and struck out at a round pace through the forest.
A silence most profound was around him. There was no sign to show that another living being was near. The savages, off the scent, had gone, he knew not whither.
With rapid strides he hurried on, intent upon reaching his destination as soon as possible.
Away to the eastward, the sky was lighting up with the rising moon, then a little past its full. Soon its beams would make it as light as evening in the forest.