CHAPTER VIII
THE SHADOW IN THE WATER
Henry Ware and the Wyandot warrior were clasped so tightly in each other's arms that their hold was not broken as they fell. They whirled over and over, rolling among the short bushes on the steep slope, and then they dropped a clear fifteen feet or more, striking the hard earth below with a sickening impact.
Both lay still a half minute, and then Henry rose unsteadily to his feet. Fortune had turned her face toward him and away from the Wyandot. The warrior had been beneath when they struck, and in losing his life had saved that of his enemy. Henry had suffered no broken bones, nothing more than bruises, and he was recovering rapidly from the dizziness caused by his fall. But the warrior's neck was broken, and he was stone dead.
Henry, as his eyes cleared and his strength returned, looked down at the Indian, a single glance being sufficient to tell what had happened. The warrior could trouble him no more. He shook himself and felt carefully of his limbs. He had been saved miraculously, and he breathed a little prayer of thankfulness to the God of the white man, the Manitou of the red man.
He did not like to look at the fallen warrior. He did not blame the Wyandot for pursuing him. It was what his religion and training both had taught him to do, and Henry was really his enemy. Moreover, he had made a good fight, and the victor respected the vanquished.
It was his first impulse to plunge at once into the forest and hasten away, but it got no further than an impulse, His was the greatest victory that one could win. He had not only disposed of his foe; he had gained much beside.
He climbed back up the hill and took the gun from the bushes where it had fallen. He had expected a musket, or, at best, a short army rifle bought at some far Northern British post, and his joy was great when he found, instead, a beautiful Kentucky rifle with a long, slender barrel, a silver-mounted piece of the finest make. He handled it with delight, observing its fine points, and he was sure that it had been taken from some slain countryman of his.
He recovered the knife, too, and then descended the hill again. He did not like to touch the dead warrior, but it was no time for squeamishness, and he took from him a horn, nearly full of powder, and a pouch containing at least two hundred bullets to fit the rifle. He looked for something else which he knew the Indian invariably carried—flint and steel—and he found it in a pocket of his hunting shirt. He transferred the flint and steel to his own pocket, put the tomahawk in his belt beside the knife, and turned away, rifle on shoulder.
He stood a few moments at the edge of the forest, listening. It seemed to him that he heard a far, faint signal cry and then another in answer, but the sound was so low, not above a whisper of the wind, that he was not sure.