Yet he welcomed the opportunity that a chance meeting with a southward bound trapper offered him of sending her a word of affection and penitence; which, as we know, she received safely. After that he saw and spoke with no one, Peter seeming to avoid all other wanderers in the wilderness. "No need to run away from man," he was wont to explain, "but no need run after 'im. What you want with 'im? Nothin'. What he want with you? Nothin'. So all right. You come on, quick an' quiet."
Sometimes they came upon the cold ashes of a hunter's fire, now and then upon a deserted Indian camping-place. But the stars and the clear skies and the calling winds, the trees and the bushes and the unseen stealthy life within their shadows, held undisturbed possession of all things.
This same stealthy life was not always unseen. Sometimes Dick and Peter would come upon a battle royal beneath the calm spring dawn. Sometimes they were aware of quiet presences around their evening fires. Sometimes they caught glimpses of great moving shapes, indistinct in the foliage, and knew that some forest lord was watching them. They had as yet contented themselves with whatever small game came most readily to hand, for Dick lacked the love of slaughter, and Peter Many-Names was apparently in a hurry, and turned aside as little as possible.
Once that noiseless spirit of death, that was ever abroad in the forest, touched them more nearly. They had made their camp for the night rather earlier than usual, owing to a slight mishap that had befallen Dick—a strained ankle, which, while not serious, made it imperative for him to have a long night's rest They watched dusk fall over the banks and glades all ablaze with the tall, purple wind-flower of the north, they had seen the stars show softly, one by one, beyond the branches of the trees, they had heard the even trickle of a tiny spring nearby interrupted by faint, faint sounds, as little wild creatures, bold in their obscurity, came there to drink.
As night darkened down, and the flame of the camp-fire grew more bright and ruddy in consequence, the woods became more stealthily hushed. For a moment, watching the gloom surrounding them—black, silent, yet giving the listener an impression of teeming, hungry multitudes within it—Dick's heart sank with a sense of isolation. On every side, for leagues, these forests lay. He felt a benumbing realisation of his own loneliness, and of the smallness of man's aims and hopes when confronted with the impassive greatness of nature. What part had he in this solemn wilderness, full of the things of the woods seeking their meat from God?
A sound like a heavy, dragging footfall broke the silence, and shook Dick's somewhat troubled nerves, so that he nearly jumped out of his blanket, in sudden, unconcealed fright. "What was that?" he cried involuntarily. And Peter responded with the nearest approach to a scornful giggle of which his dignity was capable. For it was only a porcupine taking a nocturnal walk, and not caring how much noise he made, secure in his terrible quills. The thump—thump of his leisurely progress died away, and then the quiet was disturbed only by the cries of night-birds and those continuous, faint rustlings and murmurs which seemed but a part of silence.
After dreamily listening and watching for a while longer, Dick dozed off to sleep. But his slumbers were not as peaceful as usual, owing, perhaps, to the slight pain in his ankle. And presently he was roused again—roused, not by any noise, but by a sudden and complete cessation of all the tiny sounds of the woods about them.
He had thought that the silence before had been deep; but now the intense quiet oppressed him like some palpable weight. He glanced drowsily at the fire, which was low, and then across it to Peter's crouching figure, indistinct in the shadows. Some thought of rousing the Indian was in his mind. "But no, I won't do that," he said to himself. "I 've been laughed at quite enough for one night, and it's only my fancy."
The hush was so great that he could hear the sound of the little breeze among the leaves—so great that it seemed as if all life were held in breathless suspension for a space—and it endured for some moments, broken at last by the frightened flutter of a bird roused from its sleep.
Then, as if this little frightened flutter of wings had been a signal, a dark, snarling shape launched itself from a low branch, and leapt, with a harsh cry, straight upon the Indian!