No sooner was Ree gone from the hollow whitewood, however, than John Jerome found interest in the trip to the “lick” suddenly lagging. It was one thing to talk to his bosom friend about the undertaking, but quite another to sit solitary and alone pondering upon its hardships. But he was in for it now. It most certainly would not do to give up. Kingdom would not expect to see him for four or five days at least, and he would be alone for that length of time anyway, he reflected. Thus in a measure he restored his first enthusiasm for the journey he had so impulsively suggested, and ten minutes later was on the way.
To have followed the old trail which led toward the salt spring would have been, from John’s starting point, considerably out of his way. It lay much to the south. To travel through the unbroken woods would be harder but it would likewise be safer and the latter was an important point to consider. So through the woods, setting himself to make nearly a bee line to the east, the lonesome young woodsman tramped. Sleep and food had much refreshed him after the labor and the adventures of the night, however, and except for the sense of loneliness and something of worry and anxiety concerning Kingdom’s safety, which hung heavily upon his thoughts, he would have been in fine spirits.
John was quite familiar with that portion of the woods which he was now traversing. It was not far from here that he had been held captive in the cave where dwelt Duff and Dexter. Over to the right a mile or so was the spot where the unscrupulous Duff, himself, had been forced to surrender and beg for his very life. On ahead was the little lake where Captain Brady had hidden, a number of years before. John and Ree had hunted up the place one time, just to see the spot after hearing of Brady’s wonderful leap and exciting adventure from some settlers near Fort Pitt.
The leaves underfoot and all the great forest stretching away for miles on every side were still wet from the drenching rain of the previous night. Any trail made the day before must needs have been well marked or all traces of it would be now obliterated. John thought of this as in the course of the day’s travel he twice came upon signs which seemed to tell of some person or persons having passed through much the same portion of the wilds as he was traveling, within a few days at most. One sign of this kind was a freshly cut mark of a hatchet upon a great, smooth-barked beech. Another was the presence of one small stone beside a large one and a small quantity of hickory nut shells.
No thought of danger because of these indications that there were other travelers in the woods came to Jerome. The mark upon the beech tree might have been made by anyone, white man or red. It merely showed that some one had recently been there. Likewise the nut shells may have been left by a chance hunter or even by a party of them. Still, having found these signs, and feeling quite interested in discovering more of them, some which might reveal more definite facts perhaps, as the ashes of a campfire, for example, John looked keenly in all directions as he tramped on and on. But he saw nothing and the necessity of searching for something he deemed more important—a safe and comfortable place to spend the night—caused him to turn his thoughts to other things as the short fall day drew early to a close.
A tangled mass of wild grapevines hanging over a little gully, and sheltering it alike from wind and rain, seemed to offer a good prospect, but turned out a disappointment. The ground, on being inspected, proved exceedingly wet. So on John went. Once he paused beside the thickly spreading branches of a maple, which had been uprooted by some summer storm, and contemplated lying down among the leaves the breezes had collected there. But he shook his head and passed by.
“Why the very mischief I ever thought of coming on this wild goose chase I don’t know, I vow!” the young wayfarer grumbled to himself, with a grim frown.
He was thinking of the snug little log house and the warm supper and warm bed he might have had in prospect. Even the shelter of the projecting ledge of rock, whose protection he had had the night before, seemed very attractive now. “And the old hollow poplar, that would be quite a lord mayor’s mansion, for a fact it would!” he told himself. “But there’s no use fussing for what you haven’t got and can’t have,” he added, with a philosophy which many an older man has never learned, and walked on the faster.
Only once or twice before had John spent a night in the open woods without Kingdom for company, and though he was not afraid, he dreaded the hours of darkness and the lonesome, cheerless night now just before him more and more as the shadows thickened.
“Howl away, you pesky rascals! Howl away! But you don’t know what you’re howling for!” he burst out almost spitefully as the yelping of wolves reached his ears. “I’m not going to climb a tree on your account—not if I don’t have to,” he added, making the latter saving clause barely audible, even to himself.