They had vanished as silently as the shadows of the clouds swept across the clearing.
The action of the Indians in this respect was the cause of all kinds of conjectures and theories, none of the garrison being able to offer one that satisfied the others.
Megill believed it was a diversion intended to cover up some design in another direction. He was sure that, when the Wyandots made a demonstration, it would come from some other point altogether. He, therefore, gave his attention mainly to the cabins and the clearing in front.
Turner suspected they meant to destroy the well by filling it up, so that it would be useless when the supply of water within the block-house should become exhausted. Precisely how this filling up was to be done, and wherein the necessity existed (since the Wyandots could command the approaches to the water day and night), were beyond the explanation of the settler.
Jo Stinger, the veteran of the company, scouted these theories, as he did that of the Colonel that it was a mere reconnoissance, but he would not venture any guess further than that the mischief was much deeper than any believed, and that never was there more necessity of the most unremitting vigilance.
Megill asserted that some scheme was brewing in the cabin from which the two warriors emerged, when they sought to cut off the boys in their run to the block-house. He had seen lights moving about, though the ones who carried the torches took care not to expose themselves to any shot from the station.
The silence lasted two hours longer without the slightest evidence that a living person was within a mile of the block-house. During that period, not a glimmer of a light could be detected in the cabin, there was not a single burning arrow, nor did so much as a war-whoop or signal pass the lips of one of the Wyandots.
The keen eyes of Jo Stinger and Ned Preston failed to catch a glimpse of the shadowy figures at which they discharged their rifles, and which caused them so much wonderment and speculation.
But the keen scrutiny that seized every favoring moment and roamed along the lines of stockades, further than the ordinary eye could follow, discovered a thing or two which were not without their significance.
On the northern and eastern sides a number of pickets had been removed, leaving several gaps wide enough to admit the passage of a person. This required a great deal of hard work, for the pickets had been driven deep into the earth and were well secured and braced from the inside.