Animated by a similar spirit, his men followed suit. When it became evident that no one meant to come out of the hut Rushing River resolved to go in, and did so with another yell and a flourish of his deadly weapon, but again was he doomed to expend his courage and violence on air, for he possessed too much of natural dignity to expend his wrath on inanimate furniture.
Of course one glance sufficed to show that the defenders had flown, and it needed not the practised wit of a savage to perceive that they had retreated through the back door. In his eagerness to catch the foe, the Indian chief sprang after them with such a rush that nothing but a stout willow, which he grasped convulsively, prevented him from going over the precipice headlong—changing, as it were, from a River into a Fall—and ending his career appropriately in the torrent below.
When the chief had assembled his followers on the limited surface of the ledge, they all gazed around them for a few seconds in silence. On one side was a sheer precipice. On another side was, if we may so express it, a sheerer precipice rising upward. On the third side was the steep and rugged path, which looked sufficiently dangerous to arrest all save the mad or the desperate. On the fourth side was the hut.
Seeing all this at a glance, Rushing River looked mysterious and said, “Ho!”
To which his men returned, “How!” “Hi!” and “Hee!” or some other exclamation indicative of bafflement and surprise.
Standing on the trap-door rock as on a sort of pulpit, the chief pointed with his finger to the precipitous path, and said solemnly—
“Big Tim has gone down there. He has net the wings of the hawk, but he has the spirit of the squirrel, or the legs of the goat.”
“Or the brains of the fool,” suggested a follower, with a few drops of white blood in his veins, which made him what boys call “cheeky.”
“Of course,” continued Rushing River, still more solemnly, and scorning to notice the remark, “of course Rushing River and his braves could follow if they chose. They could do anything. But of what use would it be? As well might we follow the moose-deer when it has got a long start.”
“Big Tim has got the start, as Rushing River wisely says,” remarked the cheeky comrade, “but he is hampered with his squaw, and cannot go fast.”