"There is a swamp and burnt wooded stretch called Winter Black, or the Winter Burning."
"I can remember that."
"Good luck! Thank Joe for the clue he gives me. I'll question the boys on the point. Hurry off to your camp, for you have a distance to go. In two days, same hour, at Winter Black. Good-bye, boys!"
The two shook hands and left the cavern, departing oppositely at the mouth.
The rest of the night passed tranquilly. An hour before the false dawn an owl was heard lamentably hooting as if its night hunt had failed, and it feared it must go supperless to its couch. But Jim Ridge stood up, and answered in the same long-drawn, pitiful tones.
Those of the watch must have been more surprised than edified by the singular dialogue that went on between Old Ridge and his unseen interlocutor. All the wild beasts and birds of the field, forest, and mountain seemed engaged in a concert. The calls and defiant cries of various birds seemed to awaken bears and wild cats, and the coyotes wailed to the sharply yelping prairie dogs. The sounds were so arbitrarily arranged, that a conjurer would be puzzled to distinguish the sense of a single sentence. But the Yager understood it perfectly, of course, and what is more, seemed quite satisfied with the information so strangely conveyed to him. When it was over, he went and awoke an old beaver trapper to take his relief on guard, and remarked:
"Bill has done it! All goes lovely."
At sunrise the hunters resumed their march, though Cherokee Bill had still not joined. But Ridge again passed no comment on the absence.