He seemed to retire to his bunk, as if for another nap, but made his way astern, past the horses. Here he let out the painter line that held the skiff sufficiently to allow him to reach the bank in it, and then, watching his chance, while the others were washing up and preparing breakfast, effected a landing unobserved, but on the bank opposite where he had heard the turkey gobble.
Concealing himself in the laurel boughs, he carefully reprimed his rifle and lay quiet till he had heard the turkey again. Thereupon, feeling tolerably certain that the Indian—if it were one—had not seen him land, he made a wide detour through the forest and crossed the creek at a point where the stream was shallow, half a mile above where the ark lay. From here he worked his way cautiously down the other bank, crawling from one thicket to another, with a stealth which even an Indian might have envied.
But now the youthful woodsman was at a disadvantage. The “gobbling” of the suppositious turkey-cock had ceased. With that to guide him he could easily have located the “gobbler.” For the first time he felt afraid. Either the Indian had sighted him, and was waiting for him to come nearer, or else had grown tired of the effort and gone away.
For half an hour or more the boy lay still in the brush, watching and listening, not daring to stir a twig. He was already within two hundred yards of where the ark lay, but young cane, vines and other brush made thick cover all along the bank.
Fortune favored him at length, otherwise he would not have dared to make another move. Down the bank, almost opposite the ark, a pair of redbirds suddenly began making a fuss, as they do when their nests are disturbed; a catbird also uttered its low, squalling note. Some enemy was disturbing the birds there, and with a good notion that it might be the Indian, Moses now crept slowly nearer.
All the while he could hear plainly the voices of the men on the ark and smell the smoke of their morning pipes. Lewis and Charles Hoyt were talking and laughing. He heard the latter say that he—Moses—had got the sulks and gone to his bunk!
The redbirds continued scolding. He could see them flying about over a laurel clump, and crawling still nearer, he presently detected a slight movement of the canes near an old heap of driftwood, within a few yards of the creek water and not more than a hundred feet distant. Keeping his eyes fixed on the spot, he presently saw a feathered scalp-lock rise slowly there—for a peep at the ark!
The sight sent a curious thrill along the boy’s nerves, and for some moments he lay very quiet. Then, plucking up his courage, he looked yet again to his priming and crawled a little nearer. He could see the Indian more clearly now, and distinguished his ear, shoulder and tawny right arm, with its dull brass armlet. Eager, but silent as a crouching panther, the Indian was watching the ark and listening to the voices of the men.
Moses, too, could discern as well as hear them, and it made his heart beat quickly to see Charles Hoyt walk unconcernedly aft, his head and shoulders fully exposed above the planking of the bulwarks; for he knew now that the lurking savage, unable to lure any of the arksmen ashore, had crawled down to the bank with the intention of shooting at least one of the whites, then making his escape.
“Come, help water the horses!” he heard Hoyt call out; and then Lewis and Merrick lounged aft, an easy mark for the concealed savage, who was hardly more than twenty yards away.