The wonderful youth ran as never before. His lithe legs doubled under him with inconceivable quickness, the eye seeing naught but the twinkling of the beaded moccasins. The still wind cut by his face as though it was a gale. He was a gladiator stripped for the struggle, and every nerve and muscle was strained to the last tension. He seemed a swallow skimming close to the ground, or a shaft driven from his own bow, so graceful was his arrowy swiftness.
There were swift runners among the Wyandots, and the seven warriors included their fleetest, who now put forth every exertion of which they were capable. The difference in their speed was shown by their immediate separation, with rapidly increasing spaces between them; but the young Shawanoe drew away from them, as a child draws away from the stationary object which frightens it.
Deerfoot saw the half mile sweeping under his feet, as the steel rails glide under the plunging engine, and the single glance he threw over his shoulder told the glad fact that he had not misjudged his own matchless ability as a runner. Muscle and nerve and sinew never did their work more splendidly than now, when their existence was staked on the manner in which that work was to be done. Human ingenuity could never construct a piece of mechanism which could do such marvelous service, as did those limbs of the flying fugitive on that crisp autumn day nearly a century ago, in Kentucky.
Although, as we have stated, there were many rapid runners among the Wyandots, there was not one who could attain and hold the terrific pace of the Shawanoe, whose victory, it may be said, was assured from the beginning. Fired by their fury and chagrin, they made prodigious exertions to run down the youth, or at least to approach close enough to hurl their tomahawks; but this was useless, and with an exasperation beyond expression they saw their victim slipping irrecoverably from their grasp.
Suddenly a shot rang out on the frosty air. Waughtauk, the chieftain, and the only one who had a rifle, came to a dead halt and fired point blank at the vanishing youth, hoping at least to disable him, so he would fall into their hands. Deerfoot heard the firing of the bullet, as it nipped his cheek, but he did not hasten his pace, because he was unable to do so, and no need existed. From the first he had done his best, and there was no room for an increase in the way of speed.
A third of a mile is soon traversed at such a rate of travel, and in a brief while Deerfoot approached the end of the Long Clearing. His swiftness was unabated, but, when he once more glanced around and saw that the whole seven Indians had given up the pursuit and were standing at varying distances from each other looking at him, he instantly slackened his pace.
Coming to a dead halt he faced about and, swinging his arms over his head, gave utterance to whoops and taunting exclamations.
"Have the Wyandots learned to run? Who is Waughtauk, that a youth of the Shawanoes should teach him to walk? Let the Wyandots go back to their lodges and tell their squaws that Deerfoot has taught them knowledge! Are the Wyandots tired that they must sit down and rest? Shall Deerfoot come back to them and show them what to do, when their enemies are around them?"
No more stinging taunts than these can be imagined, and the Wyandots felt their full force. They were silent, possibly because their tongue contained no words which could give suitable expression to their feelings.
Clearly it was idle to maintain the pursuit any longer, and the seven Wyandots, including Waughtauk the chieftain, stalked back toward the block-house, for the purpose of pressing the siege with more vigor than ever.