A bloody trail led away from the spot, and along this he hurried.
For some twenty rods he had no difficulty in keeping it, and then the moon went under a cloud and he was at fault.
Impatiently he stood still, waiting for it to show its face again.
Five, ten minutes passed, and it gave no symptoms of doing so.
He began to grow impatient, and to think if he had not better turn back and rejoin his friends, and hurry them onward as fast as possible.
“Let him go,” he muttered, to himself. “I guess he’s done for, so he won’t trouble us again. But I would like to have made sure of him.”
He gave one more glance up to the clouded sky, and then along the way the wounded savage had gone. Then he turned upon his heel and set his face once more in the direction of the spot where he had left the fugitives.
But he had not taken ten steps in that direction before he gave a sudden start and then stood as though rooted to the spot.
As well he might, in the alarm and surprise he felt.
A fierce war-whoop, breaking as from a score of throats, resounded through the arches of the forest.