They passed the remains of two camp fires. At both the bones of buffalo and deer, eaten clean, had been thrown about carelessly, and at the second the ashes were not yet cold. Moreover, they began to hear the Indian calls in the forest, cry of bird or beast, and Henry watched anxiously for the setting sun. Warriors might strike their trail at any moment, and darkness would be their greatest protection.
The sun had never before been so slow to sink, but at last it went down under the horizon, and the dusky veil was drawn over the earth. But the moon soon came out, an uncommonly brilliant moon, that flooded the forest with a pure white light, so intense that they could mark every ridge in the bark of the big trees. The stars, too, sprang out in myriads, and contributed to the phenomenal brightness.
"This is bad," said Henry. "This is so much like daylight that I believe they could follow our tracks."
The long plaintive howl of a wolf came from a point directly behind them, not a quarter of a mile away.
"They hev it now," said Long Jim, "an' they're follerin' us fast."
"Then there is nothing to do but run," said Henry. "We must not stop to fight if we can help it."
They broke into the long frontier trot, still heading south, slightly by east, and they did not hear the plaintive cry again for a half hour, but when it came it was nearer to them than before, and they increased their gait. A mile further on, Henry, who was in the lead, stopped abruptly. They had come to the steep banks of a wide and deep creek, a stream that would be called a river in almost any other region.
"We can't wade it," said Tom Ross.
"Then we must swim it," said Shif'less Sol.
"Yes. But listen," said Henry Ware.