"Wait till night comes," said Jo Stinger meaningly; "then you will hear music and see sights!"
Every one knew what the old scout meant by his quaint language, and every one believed he spoke the truth, as in fact he did.
CHAPTER XI.
IN GREAT PERIL.
Deerfoot the Shawanoe had drawn his arrow to the head and was in the very act of launching it at the Wyandot who was advancing on Ned Preston, when he saw that it was unnecessary.
The puff of blue smoke from one of the portholes, the whiplike crack of the Kentuckian's rifle, the death-shriek of the warrior, as he staggered back and dropped to the earth, told the startling story too plainly to be mistaken.
With the faintest possible sigh, the dusky youth relaxed the tension on the string, but he still leaned forward and peered through the bushes, for the danger was not yet past. He more than suspected the needle-pointed shaft would have to be sent after the second Indian who pressed the lad so close; but, as the reader knows, Ned Preston darted through the entrance in the very nick of time, just escaping the tomahawk which whizzed over his head and buried itself half way to the head in the solid puncheon slabs of the door.
"Deerfoot thanks the Great Spirit of the white men," the Indian youth muttered, looking reverently upward, "that his brother, whom he loves more than his own life, is unharmed."
The young Shawanoe felt that no time was to be lost in attending to his own safety. More than likely some one of the Wyandots had caught sight of the arrow, as it sailed through the air, with its important message, and the meeting of the previous day told him he was regarded with suspicion already.
He saw no Indians near him and he cautiously retreated in the direction of the river, which flowed only a short distance from him. The bushes and undergrowth, although they had lost most of their leaves, served him well as a screen, and, when he had advanced three or four rods to the northward, he began to feel more hopeful, though, it need scarcely be said, he did not relax his extraordinary caution in the least.
His purpose was to follow the river bank, until he had passed beyond the surrounding Wyandots, after which it would be an easy matter to make his way to Wild Oaks, with the news of the sore extremity of the block-house. It was reasonable to believe that Waughtauk and his warriors would guard every point much more closely than the Licking directly in front of the station, for the one hundred yards of open clearing made it impossible for any person to approach or leave the building in the daytime, without exposing himself to a raking fire, before reaching a point as close as that attained by Ned Preston and Blossom Brown, when they were checked by the two warriors.