“I can not sleep tonight. I will keep watch,” mumbled the Jumper after the turkey had been served.
“Siyu! (good)” agreed Sevier, thankful for a chance to snatch a few hours of sleep.
He had slumbered for several hours when a bullet clipped into the boll of a hemlock near his head and brought him to his feet, rifle in hand. The Jumper, with protruding eyes and gaping mouth, sat leaning against a tree. He made no move to investigate the murderous assault. The fire was down to a bed of coal.
Without a word Sevier glided into the woods. Polcher had had his first try, he concluded. He circled the camp and halted every few rods to locate the enemy by some telltale sound. Unsuccessful, he returned to the fire and lay down at a distance from the dying embers. The Jumper already had concealed himself in some thicket. With the first streak of dawn the borderer rose and dug the Jumper from his hiding-place under a huge stump and ordered him to scout the woods for signs of the midnight visitor.
But the Jumper was now far beyond the point of suffering fear of bodily violence. His brains swarmed with outraged ghosts. Strange superstitions crawled through his thoughts. During the night his medicine-bag had become dislodged from his neck, a most conclusive warning that the Little Deer was greatly displeased with him. The danger of assassination did not impress him as being vital. Bad Luck had settled her talons in his soul; beside which bullets were nothing.
“Will you go or not?” asked Sevier as the Indian tarried by the white ashes and stared timidly about.
“Last night I dreamed of the Little Deer, small as a dog and white,” he whispered. “He told me to go back to the village and give cloth to the shaman, who will make me a prayer and give me new medicine. Ah! The Crippler is twisting every bone in my body.”
“Old Tassel sent you to go with me,” persisted Sevier.
“No chief of the Cherokees gives orders after the Little Deer has spoken,” rebuked the Jumper.
“Of course; that is true,” surrendered Sevier, now resigned to proceeding alone.