He was following no trail; on the contrary, he seemed careless regarding his whereabouts, but hurried on as though some unseen hand was leading him to a certain destination.
He reached a point at length where a rivulet debouches into the Cahokia, and there, for the first time in several hours, he halted.
“They are not far from the Peoria now,” he murmured, looking to the priming of the long barreled rifle he had trailed at his side. “Swamp Oak knows that the Yellow Bloodhound dares not carry the Lone Dove to the big bands of Pontiac’s mad dogs, for they would tear her to pieces, even as the wolf rends the lamb, for she slew Segowatha. All his big talks would not save the Lone Dove; the red-men of the north loved Segowatha too well. But—hist!”
The Peoria crouched at his self warning, and slunk into the shadow of a tree.
A footstep had fallen upon his ears, and presently a giant form appeared against the whitened side of a deadened oak. It was the form of a man, and a close look told the Indian that the person was the very one for whose whereabouts he was searching.
“Ha!” he muttered, “the Yellow Bloodhound is abroad—he has left his band, and stolen deeper in the forest for what? The wolf never roams the woods for nothing; the fox leaves his den to prey.”
For a minute the creole (for indeed the giant form belonged to Jules Bardue) exhibited himself to the lone watcher, and then disappeared as suddenly as he had come upon the stage.
He plunged into the mouth of the tributary above-mentioned, and waded to the opposite shore, followed, with the cunning of the wolf, by the Peoria youth, who never took his eyes from the form just visible in the dim starlight.
The Yellow Bloodhound did not dream of the snake-like form that crept on his trail, and when he disappeared over the brow of a thickly-wooded acclivity, a short distance from the Cahokia, an exclamation of satisfaction parted the Peoria’s lips, and, rising to his feet, he bounded forward.
The sight that greeted his vision when he gained the summit of the hill, elicited no manifestations of surprise, and, calmly leaning against a tree, he viewed the scenes that lay at his feet.