Dark as it still was, Alagwa could not mistake his gestures nor doubt their meaning. He was swearing vengeance against her. Once more her finger curled about the trigger. She remembered the Shawnee proverb about the man who let a rattlesnake live. Was she letting a rattlesnake live?
As she hesitated, Cato grunted, groaned, and moved, and the man dropped swiftly down. Alagwa sighed; her chance was gone, perhaps forever.
Cato sat up, clutching at the rifle that had slipped from his grasp. Stiffly he rose to his feet. For a moment he hesitated, then he walked over to Jack and shook him gently.
“It’s time to git up, Mars’ Jack,” he said.
Jack sat up. “Why! Cato! You scoundrel!” he exclaimed. “It’s morning. You’ve let me sleep all night.”
Cato scratched his head hesitatingly. Then an expression of conscious virtue dawned upon his face. “Yessah! Mars’ Jack,” he said. “You was sleepin’ so nice I just couldn’t bear to wake you.”
“Humph! Well! Everything seems to be all right. It’s turned out well, Cato, but you mustn’t do it again. You haven’t heard any suspicious noises or anything, have you?”
The negro shook his head. “No, sah,” he declared. “Everything’s been just as peaceful as if we was back on the Tallapoosa. You c’n trust Cato to keep watch; dat you can, sah.”
CHAPTER X
THE forest was breaking. The arcades of spell-bound woods that for three days had hemmed the road were losing their continuity, giving place to glades choked with underbrush and dappled with sunbeams. The chill of the swamp land was vanishing and the landscape was momently sweetening with the fragrance of annis grass and of fern. Now and again golden-green branches showed against a blue, cloud-flecked sky.