"Ha! look yonder!" muttered Wythe. "The wild-man!"
This strange being could now be seen standing upon a huge bowlder, not far from the edge of the precipice, evidently confronting the party of emigrants, who had now passed from view beyond the hill-point. Curiously the three men watched his motions.
They heard the report of Nathan Upshur's rifle, saw the wild-man stagger and almost fall, then leap to the ground and dash up the hill. Their next view of him was as he swung lightly across the almost perpendicular face of the precipice, hanging by the frail vines and shrubbery, or dropping from ledge to ledge, agile and sure-footed as the mountain-goat itself. Reaching the base, he darted swiftly across the valley, passing close by the gold-hunters' covert, uttering a low, growling sound that seemed more like the anger of a wild beast than the voice of a human being.
"Did you notice?" muttered Duplin. "The blood was dripping from his breast. Those men yonder shot him."
"It spatters the rocks out here. If they follow his trail, they must discover us," added Wythe frowning.
"What difference? We're half white and free-born. They have no control over our actions," retorted Tyrrel.
"True; yet this pick-ax, coupled with our desertion, would rouse their suspicions, or rather direct them into the right channel, and I fear we would soon have more partners than would be pleasant or profitable. I don't want to meet them, if I can help it," added Duplin.
But their fears proved causeless, for the pursuit of the wild-man's trail had carried Chicot's party to one side of that left by the deserters, and that they were so close at hand was unknown to the emigrants. And after a short time the gold-hunters saw their late comrades turn and retrace their steps, evidently returning to the wagon train, without thought of following the wounded man further after the startling exhibition he had given them of his prowess.
Just before sunset they saw the wild-man return apparently but little injured, and their doubts thus solved, soon after the trio took up their march toward the golden valley, where fortune awaited them.
Neither noted the extreme care Jack Tyrrel observed in fixing their route upon his mind. Each rock, hill or valley was closely and thoroughly noted, so that he felt assured that he could find his way back, if needs be, in the darkest night. And find his way back he had resolved he would, sooner or later.