THE WOOD KING.
CHAPTER I.
LIGHTFOOT AND THE WOOD VETERAN.
Crack—crack!
Though faint and far away, there could be no mistaking these sharp, spiteful reports for other than the voice of rifles. The sound was no uncommon one for that region, which is even yet noted for its quantity of game; half a century since "the Osage Country" was truly a hunter's paradise.
A man was crossing the Osage river, at a ford, and though near the middle of the stream, the water barely reached his knees. As the twin reports came echoing across the eastern forest, the hunter abruptly paused, bending his head, listening intently.
The rifle-shots alone could scarcely have occasioned the surprise written so plainly upon the man's features, since this was hunting-ground common to all—red as well as white. He himself had fired more than once that day.
But closely following the reports came a series of short, peculiar yells—the cries so strongly resembling the yelping of a cur-dog when in hot pursuit of a rabbit, that an Indian sends forth when closing rapidly upon a fleeing foe.
The hunter could not mistake this sound, nor its full significance. For nearly half a century it had been familiar to his ear. Many a time had it rung out upon his own trail, as he fled for dear life through the forests of the "dark and bloody ground."