This was a case where it was idle to delay. He therefore fastened his rifle in the usual way behind his back, so as to leave his arms free, for more than likely he would need them before reaching the opposite side.
"There won't be much use of saving mesilf without the gun, so we'll hang together or go down, if we must, with our colors flying."
He placed his foot on the upper part of the trunk, just beyond where the first branch appeared, and tested it. So far as he could tell, it was sufficiently strong to bear ten times his weight.
He now advanced inch by inch, but had gone less than a fourth of the distance when he found that his rifle was balanced in such a way behind his shoulder that it was unsteady, and liable to throw him at any moment.
It was delicate and dangerous to retreat, but he did it, slowly struggling until he was so near the shore from which he started that he was able to turn quickly and leap to the solid ground.
He took several minutes to adjust his weapon, for the slight trial he had made taught him it would be exceedingly perilous for him to run any sort of risk. It would be all he could do to get across under the most favorable circumstances.
In the gathering gloom, when everything was in readiness, he placed his foot on the narrow portion of the trunk and prepared to repeat the attempt, but at the very moment of doing so he made the discovery that some one else had started to cross from the other side.
Larry Murphy learned the truth in the nick of time. Ten seconds later and he would have been on the trunk at the same moment as the other, and an advance by both must have caused them to meet over the middle of the stream.
As it was, Larry was uncertain whether he had been seen, or whether it was a man or animal that was approaching. The doubt, however, lasted but a second, when out from the gloom advanced a Shawanoe warrior, who came along the narrow bridge with the deliberate certainty of a Blondin. No fear of his making a misstep.
This of itself told the youth that the Indian had not seen him, for, if he had, nothing would have been more foolhardy than thus to place himself at the mercy of the one who a short time before had shown his nerve and marksmanship under more difficult circumstances.