They bounded forward together, as a deafening peal of thunder broke over their heads! They looked up, and saw above a canopy of inky darkness!
“The Almighty’s with us!” exclaimed Blount, as they dashed away.
“They won’t foller now, Oll,” said Doc Bell; “but they’ll hunt us to the death yit. Wonder where Bob is?”
“And my child!” groaned the father, and a moment later he asked: “Where are we going?”
“To a hidin’-place, in course,” answered the giant, and clutching the trader’s hand he abruptly turned aside.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BLOODHOUND’S HOWL.
“I wonder where Blount and Doc are. But, why do I wonder? I left them ready for that torture, the bare thought of which causes my flesh to creep, and no doubt I am the only one left. The only one? No, there’s Kate, and my life-duty is now to find her—to track the Bloodhound to his kennel, and snatch her from the fate he has in store for her—a fate worse than death.”
The speaker, as the reader has already surmised, was the young scout—Robert Somerville—nicknamed Bob, by his giant tutor and companion, now, as he thought, dead.
The youth ran several miles before he paused, almost ready to sink to the earth with utter exhaustion, and when he found that the red-skins had given over the pursuit, he crept under the projecting banks of a ravine, and fell into a sound slumber. When he awoke to the dangerous realities that surrounded him, the sun was peering down upon him, and the birds were singing among the bushes that hid his retreat. But, he did not stir; he did not seek the food his stomach craved, for well he knew what number of red marauders swarmed through the forests, and he believed that, as soon as practicable, Segowatha’s avengers would throw themselves upon his trail, determined to hunt him to the doors of doom.