Chapter Twenty One.
A Gladsome Meeting.
Some hours before dawn Robin Gore came to an abrupt pause, and looking over his shoulder, held up his hand to command silence. Then he pointed to a small mound, on the top of which a faint glow of light was seen falling on the boughs of the shrubs with which it was crowned.
The moon had just set, but there was sufficient light left to render surrounding objects pretty distinct.
“That’s them,” said Robin to Walter, in a low whisper, as the latter came close to his side; “no doubt they’re sound asleep, an’ I’m puzzled how to wake ’em up without givin’ ’em a fright.”
“Musha! it’s a fright that Wapaw will give us, av we start him suddenly, for he’s murtherin’ quick wi’ his rifle,” whispered Larry.
“We’d better hide and then give a howl,” suggested Stiff, “an’, after they’re sot up, bring ’em down with a familiar hail.”
The deliberations of the party were out short and rendered unnecessary, however, by Wapaw himself. That sharp-eared red man had been startled by the breaking of a branch which Larry O’Dowd chanced to set his foot on, and, before Robin had observed their fire, he had roused Roy and Nelly and hurried with them to the summit of a rocky eminence, from which stronghold they now anxiously watched the proceedings of the hunters. The spot to which they had fled for refuge was almost impregnable, and might have been held for hours by a couple of resolute men against a host of savages.