“Yes, Ree;” the answer was scarcely more than a whisper, “I’m up here in the loft, and listen! You can hear me?”
“Every word.”
“Don’t act surprised or excited or show that you have found out or heard anything, for they’re watching now—Lone-Elk and a pack of Delawares have surrounded the clearing. I’ve been peeking through a crack, watching ’em half an hour or more.”
CHAPTER V—IN DRIPPING RAIN AND DARKNESS
With what consternation Kingdom received the startling intelligence John’s words conveyed would never have been guessed from his actions. He tossed his rough, squirrel-skin cap on the bunk, which was a bed by night and a lounge by day, and sat down, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
“They’re after me, I s’pose, Ree,—blame ’em!” Jerome went on in the same half whisper. “I just happened to be up here pawing over some of the skins stored away so long, and got a glimpse of the rascals among the trees. So I’ve been watching ever since, and I don’t want you to think I crawled up here to hide. Just so much as hint at such a thing and I’ll—”
John did not say what he would do, but seeing how he hated being found in a position which might be taken as a reflection upon his courage, Ree was considerably tempted to suggest that maybe he himself had better get under the bed. But it was no time for joke-making and the facetious thought had no more than occurred to him than, unspoken, it was forgotten.
“Stay up there, John, old boy; see everything you can. I’ll stroll out and put Phoebe in the lean-to and gape around some in a natural sort of way myself. The whole business looks mighty bad. What Fishing Bird said is all true; I found out that much. I’ll tell you about it when I come in.”
If John Jerome had been a lad easily alarmed or one likely to fall a ready victim to a too lively imagination, Return Kingdom would certainly have thought that he had done so in this case when, after unsaddling the mare and tying her in her stall, he sat down in the open doorway of the cabin and with apparent indifference scanned the clearing from end to end, without seeing the slightest sign of the Indians’ presence.
With his elbow on his knee, his head upon his hand, as if he were merely resting, he continued to watch the wooded boundary most intently from between the fingers which concealed his eyes. He had little fear that the Indians would fire upon him from some place of concealment among the trees; the distance was too great. A white hunter might easily have brought down a deer at the same number of yards with an exceptionally heavy charge in his long-barreled rifle, but the Redskins, as Ree well knew, usually loaded with so little powder, owing to its scarcity with them, no doubt, that he had little to fear in thus exposing himself so long as the enemy came no nearer than the edge of the woods.