"I wonder whether he has any suspicion that I am behind him?" was his thought. "It may be," he added grimly, "that he is thinking what sort of yarn to get up to explain why he hasn't brought me with him. If I am not careful he may nab me after all. I'd like to know whether he still has the headache, or whether he hasn't set me down as a fool for letting him off when I had the chance to finish him."
If it should so prove that Blazing Arrow was not aware that, instead of following the white youth, the reverse was the case, the space between them was certainly increasing, for one was going slow and the other fast.
When the distance passed became considerable, Wharton began to feel hope. They were close to where he had already undergone several stirring adventures, and he was almost certain the savage runner knew nothing of his whereabouts. Finally he turned off from the trail almost at the point where he had started to run away from Blazing Arrow and his companions.
Attentively listening and watching, he heard nothing, and then began a guarded examination of the immediate neighborhood. It was there the Shawanoes had crouched when he bounded across the gorge in quest of his rifle, but it was not to be expected that they had remained there ever since. The examination convinced him that all had moved somewhere else.
Wharton's concern being now for Larry Murphy, he did some close reasoning.
"I know he will, risk his life to help me, whom he naturally thinks is in a bad way, but how is he going to do it, or how has he got across to this side of the torrent? He can't make the leap that I did, and I am quite sure he wouldn't try to swim, because that would compel him to go below the falls. The chances are that he is on the other side."
This conclusion, it will be perceived, was correct; but had the reasoner known of that fallen tree spanning the gorge, it is likely his decision would have been different.
Before repeating the leap he had already made, Wharton spent more time in what may be called reconnoitering.
It was altogether beyond reason that the Shawanoes should be looking for any such performance, and with little hesitation, therefore, he walked out from the shadow, ran across the moonlit space of rocks, and, with the same ease and grace as before, placed himself on the other bank. He quickly scurried to cover, and then awaited the result.
It was nothing, so far as he could tell. Still at a loss which way to turn or what to do, but hoping that Larry might be somewhere within reach, he made the signal which has been described elsewhere.