Passing from the gorge, Kent turned up the creek, which he followed for a considerable distance, and then struck off to the south. From this point there was a beautiful view of the mountains, and the young hunter resolved to explore further. Accordingly he shaped his course toward the desired point, and walked briskly for the space of half an hour, paying, meantime, but little heed to Wild Nat’s injunction about keeping a look-out for Indians. His thoughts were with Marion Verne, and he wandered on abstractedly, till the extreme beauty of the scene before him drew his attention, and he stopped to look about him.
Before, the mountains reared their heads, and at the left a high cliff shot upward, crowned with a few stunted cedars, and draped with a profusion of wild vines. He stood on a slight eminence, which sloped away to the right, terminating in a series of gorges, deep and shadowy, and covered with a thick growth of slender trees, laced and interlaced with bushes and vines, till they were almost impenetrable. Around him huge trees reared their heads, and bushes and vines grew in the wildest confusion, and high in the ether a large bird screamed harshly as it flew slowly over.
As the young man stood silently contemplating the scene, and wondering at the deep silence which pervaded it, he was startled suddenly, by hearing deep, guttural voices near him.
He had barely time to spring aside in the bushes, when, standing precisely where he had stood a moment before, he beheld eight or nine hideously-painted savages. Evidently the noise of his retreat had startled them, for they stopped and listened attentively. He scarcely dared to breathe, so close were the savages to him—the nearest one standing not more than six feet distant. He was so situated that he could see the Indians, while they could not see him, but, unfortunately, in his haste, he had neglected to get his gun concealed, and about six inches of the muzzle protruded from the bushes. He dared not withdraw it, well knowing that the slightest movement would betray him, and with bated breath he stood, hoping they would not discriminate between it and the stems of the bushes.
The hope was a vain one. The Indian nearest him turned his head an instant, and his eyes fell on the unlucky rifle. With a ferocious grunt, he darted forward, followed by the rest. For Wayne there was nothing to do but run, and, firing both barrels at the advancing foe, he turned and fled toward one of the gorges before mentioned, the whole pack at his heels.
The young man was an expert runner, but running on open ground was quite a different thing from running in this wilderness, as he soon found. However, he made pretty good progress, scrambling over logs, leaping rocks, and dodging under lodged trees, over stones and dead boughs, “ducking” his head to avoid limbs, and diving through thickets of vines, with a celerity which would have astonished any one new to the business, and utterly impossible, had it not been for the “motive power” behind.
Gradually he found he was distancing his pursuers, though they still were not far behind. Hurrying forward, he scrambled through a tangled thicket, and plunged down a narrow gorge, half filled with bushes, through whose rocky bottom a little stream bubbled, and which terminated in a sort of broken dell, intersected by ravines and gulf-like fissures in every direction. Darting into one of these, he followed it until the sound of pursuit grew faint, and then, panting and exhausted, he sunk down against the rocky bank and drew a long breath. As he sat there, mentally congratulating himself on his escape, and thinking of the discomfiture of his enemies, his musings were suddenly interrupted by a vise-like grip on his arm, and a guttural voice saying, in most execrable English:
“Ugh! White man go with us.”
Looking up he found himself surrounded with Indians, painted similarly to the ones he had just left behind.
He was a prisoner!