LITMIR.BIZ

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upon our trail, and our chances of escape depended as much upon the numbers of our pursuers as upon any skill or strength of ours. For if thirty or forty warriors were behind us, not only would resistance be vain, but we should probably be surrounded before we had travelled far, whereas if only a few of the savages had returned, and made the discovery of the death of their friends, there was greater hope that we might elude them. Our only chance was to push on, and, having more than a mile start, we must make the best of it. Accordingly,'Moon-eye' advanced rapidly and cautiously, and I followed her, through the forest, and we must have gone quite another mile before we exchanged a word. By this time we had arrived at a sort of hill, upon which the trees grew less thickly than at other parts of the forest. At the foot of this hill the ground broke away to the right, the trees became still more scanty, and a wide chasm yawned at the distance of some twenty yards from where we stood, the descent into which was down a precipice many feet in height, whilst on the other side of the chasm the forest rose again, and grew on in unbroken continuity. To the left the trees were somewhat thicker, and some forty or fifty yards before us, as we bore to that side in ascending the hill, we perceived a building of some sort, towards which my companion directed her way. Making me a sign to remain where I was for a moment, she crept forward to reconnoitre, and presently returning, motioned me to follow her, whilst she made her way directly to the right, in the direction of the precipice, to the very edge of which she advanced. Thence we looked down into a frightful abyss, down which, if one had tumbled, one would have had no chance of escape. Bits of jagged rock projected here and there; vegetation seemed suspended for some distance down, and then the eye rested upon thick and tangled bushes jutting out from the sides of the rock, and completely concealing the bottom of the chasm, if, indeed, it had any bottom at all, for it might be endless as far as one could see from the top. Leaning carefully forward, my companion tore a branch or two from the bushes growing near the edge of the precipice, and gave the place the appearance of having been disturbed by the passage of some heavy body. She then took from my neck a handkerchief, which I had on by way of a neck-cloth, and which I did not in the least want to part with, but, of course, gave it up readily at her request; then she calmly dropped it over the side of the precipice, so that it hung upon one of the few bushes which grew a little way down the chasm. She then turned to me and said, in a low voice:

      "'Bad Indian tink him fall down cliff – no follow any more;' and with these words noiselessly retraced her way, treading so carefully in her former footsteps as to make it appear as if there was only one trail, and that pointing towards the precipice.

      "When we had arrived at the spot from which she had previously gone to reconnoitre, we slowly ascended by the same way she had travelled before, carefully covering up and hiding all trace of our footsteps until we had reached the building to which I have already alluded.

      "It was apparently composed entirely of logs, and seemed as if it had been built for the lodge, or more likely a place of refuge, for some hunting party. The logs were roughly hewn, but skilfully laid together, forming a strong building, with only one entrance, and that by means of a door which had long since been broken down and destroyed. There were, however, two stories to the building, and as soon as we had entered the doorway, we found ourselves in a large room, some ten feet high at least, with a strong flooring of logs overhead. 'Moon-eye' rapidly made her way to one corner of this place, where stood some rude wooden steps, above which was an opening in the flooring above. These she ascended, motioning me to follow, and we presently crept through the opening into the upper room. This was lighted by two windows, one at each side, and had a stout roof overhead. There was no furniture whatever in it, but only a number of dried leaves, which seemed to have blown in at the windows from time to time, since the place had been deserted. 'Moon-eye' trod gently across the floor towards one of those windows, and on following her I found that it commanded a view in the direction from which we had come, but a view limited of course by the trees which grew within a short distance of the building. Turning to me, the girl now whispered in her own guttural accents:

      "'Bad Indian no come here, 'fraid of wicked spirit – kill much hunter here one day – times ago.'

      "I gathered from this remark that the place in which we were, had been the scene of some cruel massacre by the Indians in days past, and that the savages probably avoided it from superstitious fear. This gave me a double pleasure, for whilst it increased my hopes of safety for the maiden as well as for myself, it showed me, that she was one of those Indians whom superior intelligence, and perhaps a better education than is common among the females of her race, had raised above their common prejudices. Her plan was easily to be perceived. Could the pursuers be led to believe that we had fallen down the precipice, perhaps having turned aside from our path with a natural desire to avoid the haunted building, they would perhaps abandon further pursuit, and continue their journey. The place in which we now were, might have been easily defended by a few men against a much larger number of enemies; and, as I had my rifle with me, I might have made a stand even where I was, but it was absolutely necessary to leave the door and the aperture into the upper room open, inasmuch as the sight of any defence, however slight, would at once disclose our hiding-place to those who sought us. Nor, indeed, was there much time for consideration as to the best plan to adopt. In going to and returning from the edge of the precipice, and subsequently in concealing our trail, we had occupied some little time; and scarcely had we reached the upper story, than a yell arose from the forest which betokened the immediate advance of the foe. There was but a moment for reflection; through the chinks of the logs near one of the windows, we could see without being seen, and here we took our station, watching and waiting in breathless suspense. We had not long to wait. For some little time all was silence, and the forest looked so peaceful and lovely, that it was difficult to believe it full of savage enemies thirsting for our blood.

      "Meanwhile, I have forgotten to tell you of that which was at one moment our great difficulty, namely, my old friend Jumbo. Invaluable as he was in a fight, when the question became one of concealing a trail, he was very much the reverse. His trail was easy enough to discover, and we were rather puzzled what to do about it. The dog, however, was so intelligent that I felt sure he would understand the necessity of our separation for a time. So when we turned from our first track in order to approach the building, I pointed into the woods in the contrary direction, and bade him in the most impressive manner to go and wait for me there. The clever animal looked at me for a moment as if to fully take in what I had said, and then quietly turned round and entered the forest in obedience to my command. We were, therefore, unincumbered by his presence whilst we awaited the coming of our enemies in breathless anxiety in the upper story of the building.

      "The savages were doubtless following up our trail all this time, silently, slowly, but surely. The yells we had heard at first, were of course caused by their discovery of the bodies of their friends: why there had been a second yell, I have never discovered to this day, unless it was that they had lost our trail for a moment, and that it had been found again by some young warrior who had not sufficient experience or self-restraint to prevent his announcing the welcome fact by a shout. However this may be, they yelled no more, and after we had waited for some ten minutes or less, the party arrived at the spot whence we had ascended the hill, that is to say, within some fifty yards of the place where we lay.

      "As I have already said, the trees were thinner here than elsewhere, and we could from this cause see sufficiently well to discern objects moving about at that distance.

      "It was late in the afternoon now, but the light was still good, and 'Moon-eye' looked with keen and anxious eyes through the chinks of the logs in the direction of the savages. Though we could not count them, we soon saw that there were certainly more than twenty of the rascals.

      "The truth was, that both the other two parties had heard the firing which occurred during my fight with the ten who had attacked me, but neither party liked to retrace their steps with their captives, and each had therefore again divided, and sent back a portion of their number to follow up the matter. These two divisions had met, and their meeting and explanations had probably caused just that delay which had enabled us to take shelter in our present place of refuge.

      "All was silence for a few moments longer, whilst we saw the dusky forms of the savages flitting, like evil spirits, through the trees at the foot of the hill, and moving in the direction in which we had gone. Then presently came a tremendous yell of mingled surprise and disappointment.

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