“I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking of those two dead men under the brush pile; just can’t help it;” said John. “The man that wore those gloves knows how the bodies came there, I’ll bet a buckskin!”
“Of course,” was the answer, “but that’s just what I have suspected all along. The deuce of it now is to know what we’re going to do about it.”
The darkness was coming on most rapidly. The dark, gray clouds seemed to settle down to the very ground. In half an hour it would be quite impossible to find one’s way safely through the woods, for not a breath of wind was stirring; there would be absolutely nothing by which to be guided.
Seeing the importance of quickly reaching the neighborhood of the clearing, Kingdom proposed that John seek shelter for the night in the old whitewood while he continued on to the cabin. They would meet again soon after daybreak in the morning.
Having had some such plan in mind when setting out from home, the boys had blankets and provisions with them, and Jerome readily agreed to Ree’s suggestion.
As the hollow poplar was now not far away, they parted company at once. Kingdom promised to leave the cabin before daylight again, if he could do so without discovery, and to meet John at the whitewood for another visit to the camp in the gully.
“And you wait for me, whatever happens,” Kingdom said in admonition. “I’ll be worrying all night if I think you’re prowling around by yourself.”
“Worry fiddlesticks!” ejaculated the younger lad, with a laugh. “What if I were to be worried about you?”
So the good-byes were said and ten minutes later John was snugly settled in the protecting trunk of the big hollow tree, glad enough to rest after his long tramp.
Kingdom, meanwhile, was hurrying on at increased speed. He aimed to travel in a sort of semicircle so as to approach the cabin from a direction which would give no clue to the locality from which he had come. He had little doubt that Lone-Elk would be watching for him. Indeed, it was only the great probability that the Seneca would be prowling about the vicinity of the clearing that had made it seem necessary that he return home instead of spending the night with John. The boys wished to keep the Indian in ignorance of the fact that the “witch” was in the neighborhood at all. If they could succeed in this for a time, the redskins, Lone-Elk particularly, would conclude at last that search for the missing boy was useless.