While thus engaged, the rifle was fired from the rocks across the gorge, Fred seeing the flash, so that he knew the point it came from. At first he was sure he was the target, but concluded that such was not the case.
Filled with misgivings, he crept a few steps in the direction of the head of the path that came up from below, and listened. He was afraid to go any closer, but he was as certain as if he saw them, that several of the Indians were clustered there, awaiting the occurrence of some expected event.
"There's some mystery in this business that I fail to grasp," added Fred, as he caught the sound of guns and the faint whoops of the Indians and Tories on the other side the river. "It is possible that most of them have withdrawn, unwilling to linger when there are so many victims awaiting them in other places, but I can hardly believe it, since Jake Golcher leads them."
Moved by an anxiety that forbade him to keep still, he once more swung himself from the rocks, supported by the thick, strong vine that had served them all so well, and it required only a brief time to reach the bottom.
Everything, so far as he could judge, was in proper form, and he hastened up the ravine, rejoining his friends, who naturally were in a fever of anxiety over what seemed his prolonged absence.
"Now that you have got the vine," said his father, "I have been puzzling myself ever since you left, to understand how you are going to use it."
"It doubtless strikes you as absurd as the idea of using the one by which I had to climb up the rocks and come down again, but I am hopeful there is a way."
"I shall be glad to learn it."
"But that shot—who fired it?"
"One of the Indians, I presume."