“Blown,” said he, smiling, as if the situation were quite casual. “Must—one minute.”
I chafed, but stood motionless.
Suddenly there was a heavy crash some distance behind us.
“They are so sure, they scorn the least precaution,” I whispered, foolishly wroth at their confidence. “But come, though your lungs should burst for it,” I went on. “I will seize the first hiding-place.”
He rallied like a man, and we raced on with fresh speed. Indeed, as I look back upon it, I see that he did miraculously well for one so unused to the exercise.
Five minutes later we came to a small brook crossing our path from left to right toward the Kenneticook. It was a place of low, brushy shrubs under large trees.
“Keep close to me,” I whispered, “and look sharp. We’ll stop right here.”
I stepped into the middle of the brook, and he did likewise, carefully. Setting our feet with precaution to disturb no stones, we descended the stream some twenty paces, then crept ashore beneath the thick growth, and lay at full length like logs.
“You must get your breathing down to silence absolute,” I whispered; “they will be here in two minutes.”
In half a minute he had his laboring lungs in harness. Though within an arm’s length of him I could hear no sound. But I could hear our pursuers thrashing along on our trail. In a minute they were at the brook, to find the trail cut short. I caught snatches of their guttural comment, and laughed in my sleeve as I realized that Anderson’s very weakness was going to serve our ends. The savages never dreamed that any one could be winded from so short a run. Had their quarry gone up the brook or down it, was all their wonder. Unable to decide, they split into two parties, going either way. From the corner of my eye, violently twisted, I marked seven redskins loping past down stream.