He nodded and walked to the front of the cabin. The horse neighed shrilly. The call was repeated in the forest. The Indians continued silent. I heard it first; that is to recognize it. For I had heard it the day before. The voice of a man shouting fretfully, much as an angry child complains. Cousin understood it when a whimpering note was added.
“Baby Kirst!” he softly cried. “Black Hoof will ’low his medicine is mighty weak. Baby’s out there an’ in a bad frame o’ mind. Somethin’ is goin’ ag’in’ the grain. It’s good medicine for us that he wandered up this way.”
I began sketching the happenings at Howard’s Creek, but before I could finish the bushes on the hem of the woods were violently agitated and Baby Kirst rode into the clearing, his horse in a lather. When he beheld the dead cows and hogs he yelled like a madman and plucked his heavy ax from his belt, and turned back to the woods. He disappeared with a crash, his hoarse voice shouting unintelligible things.
“Now you can go,” quietly said Cousin as he unbarred the door. “Be keerful o’ the Injuns to the east. They’ll be a small band. I ’low I’ll foller Kirst. If he don’t drive ’em too fast there oughter be good huntin’ for me.”
That night I rode into the Greenwood clearing on Dunlap’s Creek without having seen any Indians along the way.
CHAPTER IV
I REPORT TO MY SUPERIORS
A night at the Greenwood cabin and I resumed my journey to Salem on the Roanoke. Near this hamlet lived Colonel Andrew Lewis, to whom I was to report before carrying or forwarding Doctor Connolly’s despatches to Governor Dunmore. The trip was free from any incidents and seemed exceedingly tame after the stress of over-mountain travel. All the settlers I talked with were very anxious to know the true conditions along the border.