A plash in the water scarcely twenty feet from him broke the chain of his murmurings, and he crouched at the foot of the tree like the panther ready for a spring. His forest experience told him that the noise had been caused by a human foot, and presently his keen eye detected a statue-like object on the bank of the Cahokia.
That it was the figure of a white man, our hero well knew, for the head between him and the stars that peeped through a rift in the foliage was crowned with a fur cap, and not by the plumes or scalp-lock of the Indian. The young scout held his breath while he regarded the man, trying in vain to fix his identity, and when, all at once, he heard the mysterious one communing with himself, he bent forward with an eagerness which almost proved his doom.
For his foot, which he moved to secure an easier position, snapped a tiny twig and caused the stranger with hastily-drawn knife to step directly toward him.
But still ten feet distant he paused, and after listening a moment, sent the hoot of the little horned-owl from his throat.
Bob Somerville almost started forward at this signal, for he had often heard it from the lips of Doc Bell, and now he believed that the Hercules before him was his old and tried friend. But, notwithstanding this belief, he resolved to be cautious, and answered the signal with the notes of the nightingale.
At this the giant stepped forward, paused within gun’s-length of the scout, and whispered:
“Nogawa!”
A strange thrill darted to young Somerville’s heart.
The voice had betrayed the speaker—had declared him the Yellow Bloodhound!
For a moment the young scout did not move; but he was concentrating his strength for a spring.