“We are going to help Proctor. When we return, look out, usurper.”
Such words Wolf-Cap found chalked on his cabin door, on his return from Sandusky, one day in the spring lately passed. He saw that he had saved his life by being absent, and he awaited with impatience and anxiety the result of British operations in the North-west. Noble-minded and courageous, almost to a fault, he did not fear the threats of the Night-Hawks, as the reader has seen by his defiance; but the unprotected settlers called forth his sympathy.
“I’ll help take Huldah to Strong’s,” he said, looking at his dog, after posting his defiance, “and then I’ll make this cabin our castle, Dick. I don’t know as I’ve got much to live for, since Bessie left me, and I’ll try to rid the people of several of their plagues afore I go. Here be six rifles an’ plenty o’ ammunition, and we’ll drop a doe to-night, if it gets cloudy.”
The trapper hailed the approach of night with joy, and locking Yellow Dick within the cabin, took up the trail to Levi Armstrong’s hut. His frequent visits to the cabin had traced a well-defined trail, and as he hurried along, he planned for the future, which cast gloomy clouds over him—hunted man as he was.
“Just let any body touch one o’ Huldah Armstrong’s black hairs,” he suddenly exclaimed, aloud. “Just let ’em do it, I say, and, be he white or red, I’ll let a ray of sunshine through his heart. That girl is just the purest, fairest creature in New Connecticut, and I’m her champion, I am—Card Belt. I love that girl,” and in the gloaming a crimson flush appeared on his cheek; “but not like a young man. No! I’m old enough to be her father, and I love her because she looks like Bessie. I often wonder if she will ever have a young lover. Ah! if she gets down to Strong’s, the young bucks will go up over her face, and they won’t be able to drop an Indian for looking into her eyes.”
He communed thus with himself until he reached the creek near Armstrong’s clearing, when the whiz of a bullet broke his train of thoughts, and brought him to a sudden halt.
“That’s close,” he ejaculated, glancing at the work made by the ball in the tree near his head. “But a miss is as good as a mile, and I’ll show the greaser that two men can play with rifles at the same time.”
The next moment he sunk into the tall grass that lined the margin of the stream, resolved to outwit his foe.
“I begin to see through the mist,” he said, with a broad smile, a moment after disappearing among the grass. “Silver Hand is up to one of his old tricks again. Curse that Indian! I’ve got to break him of such practices. He shoots too uncommon close, sometimes.”
Then a bird-call issued from the trapper’s throat, and was answered from a spot a short distance away, on the opposite bank of the stream.