“’Pears so to me. It may stop by day an’ give us a chance to leave without a soakin’.”
They relapsed again into a long silence, but they saw that their hope was coming true. The wind was sinking, its shriek shrinking to a whisper and then to a sigh. The rain ceased to beat so hard, coming by and by only in fitful showers, while rays of moonlight, faint at first, began to appear in the western sky. In another half hour the last shower came and passed, but the forest was still heavy with dripping waters. Henry, nevertheless, knew that it was time to go, and he awakened the sleepers.
“We must make up our packs,” he said.
The five worked with speed and skill. All the lead, newly brought, had been molded into bullets, and the powder, save that in their horns, was carried in bags. This, with the blankets and portions of food, constituted most of their packs. Some furs and skins they left to those who might come, and then they slipped from the warm hollow, which had furnished such a grateful shelter to them.
“It’s just as well,” said Henry, “that we should let ’em think we’re still in there. Then they may waste a day or two in approaching, so hide your footprints.”
The earth was soft from the rain, but the stony outcrop ran a long distance, and they walked on it cautiously so far as it went, after which they continued on the fallen trunks and brush, with which the forest had been littered by the winds of countless years. They were able, without once touching foot to ground, to reach a brook, into which they stepped, following its course at least two miles. When they emerged at last they sat down on stones and let the water run from their moccasins and leggings.
“I don’t like getting wet, this way,” said Henry, “but there was no choice. At least, we know we’ve come a great distance and have left no trail. There’ll be no chance to surprise us now. How long would you say it is till day, Sol?”
“’Bout two hours,” replied the shiftless one, “an’ I ’spose we might ez well stay here a while. We’re south o’ the hollow an’ Wyatt an’ his band are purty shore to come out o’ the north. The woods are mighty wet, but the day is goin’ to be without rain, an’ a good sun will dry things fast. What we want is to git a new home fur a day or two, in some deep thicket.”
They began to search and presently found a dense tangle, with several large trees growing near the center of it, the trunk of one of them hollowed out by time. In the opening they put their bags of powder, part of their bullets and other supplies, and then, wrapped in their blankets, sat down in the brush before it.
“Now, Henry,” said Shif’less Sol, “it’s shore that we ain’t goin’ to be besieged, though our empty holler may be, an’ that bein’ the case, an’ the trouble bein’ passed fur the moment, you an’ Jim, who watched most o’ the night, go to sleep, an’ Tom an’ Paul too might take up thar naps whar they left ’em off. I’ll do the watchin’, an’ I’ll take a kind o’ pride in doin’ it all by myself.”