Could it, then, have been an Indian who aimed at my life? And if not, who in the world besides had a motive for killing me? I could think of no one whom I had offended—at least no one that I had provoked to such deadly retribution.
The drunken drovers came into my mind. Little would they care for treaties or the result of the council. A horse, a saddle, a gun, a trinket, would weigh more in their eyes than the safety of their whole tribe. Both were evidently true bandits—for there are robbers among red skins as well as white ones.
But no; it could not have been they? They had not seen us as we passed, or, even if they had, they could hardly have been upon the ground so soon? We had ridden briskly, after leaving them; and they were afoot.
Spence and Williams were mounted; and from what Jake had told me as we rode along in regard to the past history of these two “rowdies,” I could believe them capable of anything—even of that.
But it was scarcely probable either; they had not seen us: and besides they had their hands full.
Ha! I guessed it. At last; at all events I had hit upon the most probable conjecture. The villain was some runaway from the settlements, some absconding slave—perhaps ill-treated—who had sworn eternal hostility to the whites; and who was thus wreaking his vengeance on the first who had crossed his path. A mulatto, no doubt; and maybe bearing some resemblance to Yellow Jake—for there is a general similarity among men of yellow complexion, as among blacks.
This would explain the delusion under which my companion was labouring! at all events, it rendered his mistake more natural; and with this supposition, whether true or false, I was forced to content myself.
Jake had now got everything in readiness; and, without staying to seek any further solution of the mystery we leaped to our saddles, and galloped away from the ground.
We rode for some time with the “beard on the shoulder;” and, as our path now lay through thin woods, we could see for a long distance behind us.
No enemy, white or black, red or yellow, made his appearance, either on our front, flank, or rear. We encountered not a living creature till we rode up to the stockade of Fort King (Note); which we entered just as the sun was sinking behind the dark line of the forest horizon.