“Bes’ git back little furder. Injun shoot plenty straight by dis light. Ketch hoss—den be back, bumbye. Bes’ hide in bushes up dere, den Injun go by—won’t see um,” interrupted a guttural voice, evidently proceeding from the lips of the Indian alluded to.
“You’re right, Tom. They’ll be apt to follow back on their own trail, to see where she gave them the slip. Do you think you can walk, Miss?” he added, turning toward Clara; “or shall I carry you? There is danger in lingering here.”
“Thank you—I will walk. If you lend me your arm I think— Ah!”
Clara rose to her feet by clinging to the strong arm of her new-found friend, but then, with an agonized groan, she would have fallen to the ground, had not his arms encircled her fainting form. The violent fall had evidently injured the maiden far more severely than she had at first believed.
“Lead the way, Delaware,” muttered the man, as he raised the girl in his arms. “Quick!”
The Indian turned and glided along the level plat for a few yards, then began ascending a steep incline. Up this for a considerable distance; then he paused before a dense growth of bushes, that seemed to shoot out from the very face of the bank.
The man bearing Clara was quickly beside his red companion, and then they all entered the bushes, disappearing from sight.
This spot was upon a hillside, at whose base ran a clear stream of water. Beyond this, again, was a level strip of ground, studded thickly with little clumps of trees and undergrowth.
The three persons were ensconced within the bushes, close against the rocks, that uprose, bare and gray, for nearly a dozen yards, sloping so that a stone dropped from the escarpment above, would touch the ground several yards out from the base. This cliff, however, only extended for a short distance upon either hand; then it ran out into a steep hillside, down which, on one hand, Clara had been cast by the stumbling of her horse.
“How do you feel now?” asked the white man, after a moment’s rest.