“My!” said Harvey, drawing a long breath, “that was a sledge-hammer hit, I don’t think. Harrod, I’m much beholden to you. I did feel mighty skeered—that fellow would have eat me up slick. Well, you’re off again, are you? You take it quiet I expect. I don’t. I mean to have that skin—it’s a beauty.”
And taking only his knife, Harvey descended onto the ledge, and began groping his way down the gully, which was a little more light than in the evening, under the influence of the moon’s pale, cold, and quivering rays, that dropped here and there through the open space between trees and boughs. He advanced the whole length of the gully before he saw any sign of the unfortunate brute; but there at the mouth of the ravine it lay by the bank, motionless, still, quite dead. The tremendous force of the woodman’s ax, wielded by such an arm, had caused death to be instantaneous.
“It’s a mighty tall brute,” said Harvey, who now was a rude trapper—“a mighty tall brute. I expect that skin will make a fine rug for Miss Jane—so, lest the wolves should tear it, which wud be a pity, I’ll just skin it on the spot.”
And he did. He drew it ashore, and there, regardless of danger, laughing at the wolves, forgetting his own lesson to Custaloga, forgetting that the loping and murderous Indians were about, he sat down, and never stopped until the skin was quite clear of the carcass. Then, and only then, he started on his way upward to the niche, carrying his prize in triumph.
He laid it up safely, and then, somewhat tired of his strange occupation, he went soon to sleep, and slept so heavily, that nothing disturbed him, not even the howling of the wolves, as they fought and gorged themselves over the body of the dead panther.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FROG’S HOLE.
Meanwhile events were elsewhere taking place, which are so essentially necessary to the proper understanding of our narrative that we must leave Custa to perform his journey, the inhabitants of the block to grieve for Amy, and she herself to continue on her way with the Indians, while we introduce characters who will have much to do with the elucidation of events, and the clearing up of the mystery which attaches to a very large portion of our narrative. The early events of our story have, however, been, in relation to incidents, so rapid that we have not been able to turn to what may in the outset appear a subject of minor interest, but which will in the end be found to be absolutely necessary to the understanding of what follows.
At some distance from the Scioto river, up toward the hills, hitherto chiefly frequented by wild trappers and men of the woods, by bordermen, and by a race of some bandits left by the war, horse-stealers, cow-thieves, and others—about three hours’ hard ride from the Moss, and an equal distance from Scowl Hall—was a shanty, log, or farm-house, which had obtained, from the locality in which it was situated, the name of the Frog’s Hole. It was notorious by name to most of the wild bordermen—had been used as a place of refuge by runaway negroes; but was chiefly the rendezvous of the abominable race of White Indians, or renegades, who played so infamous a part in the war, and who, as outlaws and outcasts of society, were compelled, when they wished to meet for the purposes of conspiracy or amusement, to select some spot where they were safe from the honest white men: from the Indians they had nothing to fear. Here it was that the spies, too, of the British army were wont to quarter during the war; and here might often be seen Red-Bird the Shawnee, Simon Girty the ex-American, now the bitter enemy of his countrymen, whom he had betrayed; Captain Peter Druyer, a Canadian, once in the service of England, now a wanderer; and here, during the war, the celebrated Captain Duquesne had often organized his expeditions.
A small and beautiful glen, with pine and larch and elms bursting from its fertile sides, conducted the waters of a pleasant stream into a little pool or lake, which, after barring up the entrance of the valley, again fell away to the west, and by a winding course gained the Scioto, and then the Ohio. A path round this pool led, by a number of steps in the rock, to a rustic lodge, opening on to a platform, upon which was built, leaning against the rock, a house of somewhat antique appearance for that part of the world. It was built partly of stone, and partly of wood.