“You’re downright sure you saw them, John?” inquired Kingdom, in a low voice, rising and entering.
“There he goes! There—did you see that?” came an excited undertone from Jerome as if in answer.
Instantly Kingdom looked out but he saw nothing.
“I vow! I think it was the Seneca!” John whispered. “He ran from the big beech near the patch to the clump of little trees at the left. Guess he thought no one was watching but you, and darted out when your back was turned.”
“I’ll stay back out of sight a bit, and you look sharp. Maybe we can make out what they’re up to,” Kingdom replied. Then, to lead the savages to suppose that their presence was not suspected, Ree went about making a bright fire as if to prepare dinner, and soon the smoke from the cabin chimney conveyed to the crouching redskins in hiding along the clearing’s edge the very impression he wished them to receive.
Kingdom spent half an hour,—a long half hour of suspense and anxious thoughts—in putting the room to rights, busying himself in a dozen different ways, while John peered closely from the crack, to see through which his eyes had already been strained so long they ached severely. Still he saw nothing. Whether the savages were only extremely wary or whether, as the boys fervently hoped, they had slipped away and gone as silently as they came could not be known, and continued vigilance was the only key to their safety.
All day John Jerome remained concealed in the loft, watching almost constantly from the narrow crevice which permitted him to see without being seen. All day Return Kingdom went about from the cabin into the lean-to barn, from the barn into the cabin again, and in and out of the open door a hundred times on one pretext and another, doing his best to make his every movement seem composed and natural.
He was certain in his own mind that the savages were watching for John. Perhaps they expected to see him in some fantastic and witch-like shape,—see him change from a cloud to human form, or turn himself into some wild beast.
Once a wandering crow flew into the clearing and circled idly over the little cornfield. As it flew down to a shock of corn, both boys chanced to notice it and both saw, too, a sudden, rapid movement, and then another and another, within the fringe of the woods. Were they the dancing shadows of wind-tossed branches, or were the Seneca and his band still near? Quick as the movements were, little as the boys had seen, they knew the answer to the question which occurred to them and thanked the vagrant crow for the information he had been the means of giving them.
“Still,” said John, “if those fool Delawares get it into their heads that that crow is me, and like as not Lone-Elk may tell ’em some such thing, it’ll just make the whole lot of them believe more than ever that I am a sure enough witch.”