“Hello, friend!” Ross cried cheerily. “You seem to be suffering from an attack of homesickness.”
“Y-e-s, I am a little homesick,” the fellow admitted reluctantly. “You see, I left the little woman an’ the babies ’way down in ol’ Kaintuck. An’ sometimes I git to feelin’ that somehow I’ll never see ’em ag’in.”—And a sob was in his big, coarse voice.—“I thought ev’rybody was asleep an’ I’d jest sing a bit. Some people cries when they’re sad—I sing. It always makes me feel better, too. Hope I didn’t wake you up with my bellerin’.”
“Oh, no!” Douglas hastened to say. “I was awake. But probably both of us had better try to sleep; it is late.”
“I s’pect we had,”—admitted the Kentuckian—and lapsed into silence.
Ross retraced his steps to his own fire and lay down. But restlessness had possession of him. Again the voice of the singer fell upon his ears. This time Bright Wing opened wide his black eyes and sat erect; and Farley rolled over, grumbling sleepily:
“Dodrot the critter! Can’t he quit his caterwaulin’ day n’r night? He ort to be off on a desert island by hisself.”
Joe’s voice ended in a long-drawn snore. Bright Wing nodded a few times and rolled over upon the damp ground, his head wrapped in his blanket. Douglas threw some dry wood upon the fire and continued his vigil. An hour passed. Utter silence reigned around him. Presently the bloodhound growled ominously and sprang to his feet. Ross laid a restraining hand upon him and commanded him to lie down. But Duke refused to obey. Instead he broke from his master’s grasp and disappeared in the darkness.
“What does it mean?” Ross muttered as he hastily arose and set off in pursuit of the animal.
He caught a glimpse of the shadowy form of the bloodhound flitting past one of the dying camp-fires—going in the direction of the river. Silently but swiftly he followed. On reaching the bank of the stream, he stopped in the black shadows of the trees and strained his eyes and ears, in a vain effort to catch sight or sound of the dog. But all was silent blackness. He was on the point of calling the animal, when a faint, buzzing hum greeted his sense of hearing. The sound was a series of whispered syllables. Dropping upon hands and knees, he crept toward the river’s edge. Suddenly he dropped flat upon his face and lay motionless. The sharp snap of a breaking twig, a few feet ahead of him, had warned him that he was close upon the speakers. Then he distinctly heard these words: