"How far away would you say that war whoop was?" asked Henry.
"'Bout a quarter o' a mile but it'll take 'em some little time to find our trail. An' ef you an' me, Henry, can't leave 'em, ez ef they wuz standin', then we ain't what we used to be."
Presently they heard the war cry a second time, although its note was fainter.
"Hit our trail!" said the shiftless one.
"But they can never overtake us in the night," said Henry. "We've come to stony ground now, and the best trailers in the world couldn't follow you and me over it."
"No," said the shiftless one, with some pride in his voice. "We're not to be took that way, but that band an' mebbe more are in atween us an' our fine house in the cliff, an' we won't get to crawl in our little beds tonight. It ain't to be risked, Henry."
"That's so. We seem to be driven in a circle around the place to which we want to go, but we can afford to wait as well as the Indian army can, and better. Here's another branch and we'd better use it to throw that band off the trail."
They waded in the pebbly bed of the brook for a long distance. Then they walked on stones, leaping lightly from one to another, and, when they came to the forest, thick with grapevines they would often swing from vine to vine over long spaces. Both found an odd pleasure in their flight. They were matching the Indian at his tricks, and when pushed they could do even better. They knew that the trail was broken beyond the hope of recovery, and, late in the night, after passing through hilly country, they sat down to rest.
They were on the slope of the last hill, sitting under the foliage of an oak, and before them lay a wide valley, in which the trees, mostly oaks, were scattered as if they grew in a great park. But the grass everywhere was thick and tall, and down the center flowed a swift creek which in the moonlight looked like molten silver. The uncommon brightness of the night, with its gorgeous clusters of stars, disclosed the full beauty of the valley, and the two fugitives who were fugitives no longer felt it intensely. Henry was an educated youth of an educated stock, and Shif'less Sol, the forest runner, was born with a love and admiration in his soul of Nature in all its aspects.
"Don't it look fine, Henry?" said the shiftless one. "Ef I hed to sleep in a house all the time, which, thanks be, I don't hev to do, I'd build me a cabin right here in this little valley. Ain't it jest the nicest place you ever saw? Unless I've mistook my guess, that's a lot o' buff'ler lyin' down in the grass in front o' us."