Sensing all this as he dodged, Norton wasted neither time nor movement. Before the first of the crowd poured out across the dead man, he made a flying leap for the saddle, gained it, and sent his horse ahead on the jump. He knew his one chance lay in getting out of town within the hour—as Ayres had predicted.
Another pistol cracked behind him, and another. The balls whistled harmlessly past, but served to draw attention. Several men leaped into the road, shouting; Norton drove his horse at them with a yell, and they fell away. Without thought, he had headed up-town and now had no choice but to continue his way along the south road.
The last of the fine brick houses was almost past, and the uproar behind him was being swelled by voices and bells. The final house was a splendid mansion—Norton knew it for that of a Doctor Gault. As he pounded past the terraced gardens, he glanced up to the doorway and caught sight of a group of figures—Colonel Taylor, Zach, Boone and others. A wave of the hand came to him, a shouted farewell, and Louisville fell behind.
"And now for the chase," thought Norton grimly, pulling in his steed a trifle. "They'll fasten that murder on me and get me—if they can. It's a neat manner to be rid of an enemy—the second attempt in one morning, the day after my arrival in town! Now I would call that quick work, brainy work, but desperate work. Whoever he is, Blacknose fears me—good! If I can match his villainy with honest woodcraft, he shall fear me more."
Twisting in the saddle, Norton looked back, having caught a sudden thud of hoofs. He thundered past a cross-roads, and although the town was shut out behind, the horseman who followed was plainly visible. He wore a crushed beaver-hat, scarlet breeches, and a fluttering greatcoat; as Norton gazed in amazement, the other waved him onward. Ayres, for it was no other, drew up at the cross-roads, carefully spattered mud over the road from a puddle, then departed at a gallop by the eastern track and was lost to sight.
"Covering my trail—the old fox!" exclaimed Norton. "Mr. Ayres, my compliments. You may be a schoolmaster, but John Norton owes you his life this day!"
And he rode on to the south.
CHAPTER IV
That there would be pursuit Norton knew well enough. He knew also that if he were caught, he would not be brought back to Louisville alive; Blacknose, being a person of sufficient wit to make so shrewd and swift a plot, would have him safely shot in order to preclude all possible danger. Once past Sullivan's ferry, where the post-road crossed the Ohio to Vincennes seven miles below Shippingsport, Norton knew that he would have the wilderness ahead and his own good wits to rely upon.