Minute after minute passed by, and the shouts died away, and then the tread of the returning savages was heard. At the moment of deepest excitement, Tom Rutter had not been forgetful of his charge. Returning from the unsuccessful chase of the fugitives, Rutter immediately bent his footsteps in the direction of the prison-house of the Major, desirous of ascertaining, with his own eyes, that his escape had not been effected.
He entered the hut with a brand from which the blaze had been extinguished by the rain, and the few coals remaining on it were crackling and spitting, as he endeavoured to blow them again into a flame.
Half apologetically, Rutter remarked:
“How did that hole git thar? It warn’t thar last night, an’ someone must hev made it.”
“You can feel easy, as far as either of us are concerned, for it was made by neither of us,” was the response of Robison. “If your guards choose to go to sleep, or permit such things to be done, I am sure the fault is none of mine.”
The old chief had followed Rutter, and saw the aperture with as much surprise, although he uttered no exclamation. He remarked to the renegade, in a low tone, and using the Indian dialect:
“The young man has been here, and has entered the lodge. The braves who watched must have slept at their posts. He has come once, and left his mark; next time he will leave a broader one. We must hasten into our own country, where he cannot follow, for I see he is very brave.”
“That’s so, the whole tribe on ’em is of jist sich a stock, and there’s a dozen or more o’ trappers, as is clar grit, what’ll be arter us as soon as they git wind o’ the Major bein’ off. Yer ain’t safe from them kind o’ fellers, even when yer sittin’ in yer own lodge. They’d think no more o’ shootin’ ye than poppin’ over a beaver or a buffalo. But we must set a man to watch that thar hole till we start, which, accordin’ to my notion, won’t be so drefful long.”
“Ugh!” said the chief, and the two departed to their lodge; there to wait until the morning dawned.