Alloway made no reply, but he took off a cocked hat that he wore even in the wilderness, and began to fan his heated face. A rifle cracked suddenly, and the hat flew from his hand into the air. The Indians uttered a long wailing cry like the Seneca "Oonah," but did not move from their places or show any sign that they wished to pursue.
The colonel's empty hand remained poised in the air, and he gazed with mingled anger and wonder at his hat, lying upon the ground, and perforated neatly by a bullet. Wyatt, Blackstaffe and Cartwright looked at him but said nothing. Even Wyatt felt a thrill of awe.
"That, sir, was a warning," he said at last. "He could have shot you as easily."
"But why don't the warriors pursue? He could not have been much more than a hundred yards away!"
"They're afraid, sir, and I don't blame 'em."
Wyatt himself showed apprehension. He knew the bitter hatred the borderers felt toward all renegades. The name of Girty was already one of loathing. Blackstaffe was another who could expect little mercy, if he ever fell into their hands, and Wyatt himself knew that he had fully earned the Kentucky bullet. He did not feel the superstition of the warrior, but he regarded the gloomy depths of the forest with just as much terror. There was no reason why the silent marksman who hung upon them should not pick him out for a target.
They came to a creek running three feet deep, but they waded it and then stood for a minute or two on the bank, wringing the water out of their clothing. Colonel Alloway still cursed under his breath, and bemoaned the fate that had befallen him. It seemed a cruel jest that he, who had served in Flanders and Germany, in open country that had been civilized many centuries, should be sent from Detroit to march as an ally of savages in that enormous and unknown wilderness.
The cry of the owl came from a point straight ahead, and not more than four hundred yards away. Not a savage moved. But Alloway's whole frame shook with furious anger. It was preposterous that they should be harried so on their march by a single enemy. Once more he turned to Wyatt and said:
"Can't we spread out in some manner and catch this impudent fellow? Are thirty men to be driven all night through the woods by a single border rover?"
"I can put your question to the chiefs," Wyatt replied, "but I doubt whether anything will come of it."