“I hardly know, Harry. If we start to go on those Indians may be laying low for us.”
“Do you want to remain in the tree all night?”
“We may have to remain here all night. If we start out after it is real dark we may become hopelessly lost in the timber.”
“But the redskins can spot us twice as quick in the daylight as they can now.”
“I know that as well as you.”
After this came another long spell of silence, in which each boy was busy with his thoughts. The mind of each dwelt upon the camp. Had it been attacked, and if so had any of the loved ones been slain?
As night came on they heard strange sounds in the forest, sounds which would have frightened youths less used to woodcraft. From the hollow came the mournful glunk of frogs, and the shrill tweet of tree toads. All around them the night birds uttered their solitary notes, punctuated ever and anon with the hoot of an owl. And then they heard the rustling of underbrush as various wild animals stole from their lairs in quest of prey.
“I am going to climb to the top of the tree and see if I can locate the camp-fire,” said Harry, at length. “If that is burning as usual it will be a sign that nothing very wrong has happened.”
Leaving his gun hanging on a limb, he commenced to climb from one branch to the next. Joe was about to follow but concluded that it would be best for one to remain below on guard, for the top of this giant of the forest was fully eighty feet above the position he now occupied.
The climbing of such a tree is by no means an easy task. As Harry approached the top he found the branches further apart and quite slender, and he had all he could do to haul himself from one safe position to another above it.