“His ears were strained anxiously to catch the first deep baying that would tell him the dogs were on his scent. Every minute that the dreadful voices delayed was an addition to his little stock of hopes. If only he could reach the cave, his chances of victory over the dogs would be much increased; for the entrance to it was so small that only one of his assailants would be able to get in at a time.
“At last, when he had run about two miles, his breath failed him. He threw himself flat on his face on a bit of mossy ground beside a brook. As he lay there gasping, his mouth open, his eyes shut, suddenly along the resonant ground were borne to his ears the voices of the dogs.
“When he sprang to his feet he could no longer hear them; but he knew he must gain more time. Jumping into the brook he ran several hundred yards up-stream; then, seizing a long, overhanging branch, he swung himself well ashore, some ten feet clear of the bank.
“As he once more headed for the cave, he flattered himself, not without reason, that the dogs would lose some time before they picked up his scent again.
“The baying of the pursuers soon came near enough to be distinctly heard, and then grew in volume rapidly. At last it stopped; and he knew the dogs had reached the brook, and were hunting for the scent. Before that sinister music rose again on the stillness of the wilderness air, Henderson came in sight of the hillside wherein the cave lay hidden.
“Just as he was congratulating himself that he had now a good chance of escape, a thought occurred to him that dashed his hopes. ‘Why,’ said he to himself, ‘the dogs would most likely refuse to enter the cave!’ Seeing the smallness of the entrance, they would no doubt stay baying outside, keeping him like a rat in a hole until the soldiers should come and smoke him out.
“However, he decided to risk it. He could, at least, block the entrance with stones, and make some sort of fight at the last; or even there might be some other exit,—some fissure in the hill which he had never explored. At any rate, he was too much exhausted to run any farther.
“As he approached the low opening in the hillside a lot of hornets darted past his ears. Having a dread of hornets he glanced about nervously, and imagined at first they were denizens of his cave. But in a moment he saw the nest.
“It was an immense gray globular structure, hanging from the branch of a small fir-tree, at a height of about two feet from the ground. It was not more than five or six feet from the cave, and almost directly in front of it.
“Henderson was a man of resources; and he appreciated the fighting prowess of a well-stirred colony of hornets. He decided to enlist the colony in his defence.