CHAPTER V. THE JOURNEY.

Half an hour after, three persons rose from a full meal of broiled venison, comforted and refreshed, and little Ruby Roland asked:

“Now, gentlemen, which way?”

“Straight across that thar stream,” said Kenton, pointing to the deep but narrow channel which separated them from the south bank. “I’ve been lookin’ fur a place to cross dry-shod, and thur ain’t but two ways: uther to swim, or to make a ring-tailed squealer of a jump, which we mout do, but the lady kurn’t.”

“I will show you a better way than that,” said Ruby, smiling, “if you will follow me.”

She led them to the south side of the island, where the swift current had undermined the bank, till it overhung considerably. At this point the stream was not over twenty feet wide, and a clump of young chestnut trees overhanging the water, almost met with their foliage the boughs of a water-elm on the other bank.

The girl threw her bow and quiver to her back, swung herself up one of the young trees like a monkey, and immediately her weight caused it to bend down and touch the boughs of the elm-tree.

Light as a mountain-cat, she walked along the swaying perch, caught hold of a long, slender bough of the elm, and swung safely on her feet on the south bank of the river.

“Well done, by the holy poker!” said Kenton, admiringly. “Ef I’d ’a’ thunk of that last night, whar would you ha’ be’n, cunnel? No miss fire, then.”

And the reckless borderer crossed the stream, followed by his companion, both laughing at the recollection of the ludicrous mistake of the night before.

Arrived on the other side, both became grave and professional at once; and the girl Ruby, who had hitherto taken[25] the lead, remained subject to the further direction of her protectors.

“Now, Simon,” said the elder scout, “there are no sign about here yet, but that doesn’t say there won’t be before long. We’ve a good day’s tramp to Harrodsburg, and, tew chances to one, the Shawnees will take a short cut and lie in wait for us at the town, leaving a small party to follow the lady’s trail. It’s a chance if they hit upon ours. So you take the right hand, I’ll take the left, and Miss, here, shall have the middle. Forward.”

Without another word the three set out on their perilous tramp through the silent woods, at a long distance from each other, stealing like shadows among the trees, and glancing from side to side as they went, suspicious of every rustling leaf.

Boone was at least a hundred yards to the left and in front, very rarely visible at all, but all eyes and ears in the direction he was guarding, the quarter from which he himself thought the danger most imminent.

Simon Kenton was at an equal distance from Ruby on the other side, and never allowed a glimpse of himself, the only announcement of his presence being the occasional whistle of a robin from the leafy covert.

Little Ruby, in the center, held her own course fearlessly, flitting from tree to tree, and always peering ahead from behind every trunk, to see that the coast was clear, before flitting to another. As noiseless as a startled bird, she passed through the dense forest toward Harrodsburg, without a sounding footfall, and many a time her two companions would have thought she had disappeared, but for the answering signals which she sent back to Kenton, whenever he was doubtful.

Instead of finding the little girl an incumbrance, both hunters were compelled to admit that her Indian education had made her a more skillful hider than they.

Thus the three companions pressed through the silent forest in a south-westerly direction, cutting across the bend of the stream which separated them from Harrodsburg. They had only about twenty-five miles to go in a direct line, but in the woods, and among wily foes like the red-men, such a distance[26] took double the time to traverse that it would on a high-road in a quiet country. Every half-hour they called a halt, while the two scouts went on a circuit on either hand, to look for sign of enemies in pursuit.

For a long time nothing was found. The sun climbed up overhead, and darted his flaming arrows through the leaves, the birds ceased to sing, and only the sleepy whirr of the cicada recurred at intervals to make the silence deeper. Far away in the woods they could hear the occasional mournful boom boom of the wood dove, but the squirrels and deer were all silent and hidden away.

At noon Boone uttered the cry of the wood dove three times in succession, as a signal to close, and the three friends met together under a great tree.

“The enemy have passed ahead toward Harrodsburg,” said the hunter, in a low tone. “I have just come on a trail not more than three hours old, off to the left. They have twenty warriors with them, and have gone to join Blackfish and his band at Harrodsburg.”

“What do you propose doing, then?” asked little Ruby, quietly.

Boone looked at her several minutes before answering.

“You tell me these men are after you, Miss. Well, nothing is surer than that we can’t get into the fort by daylight. We are only seven miles from Harrodsburg now, and if we run too fast, we shall only fall into a well-prepared ambush.”

“Shall we wait here, then?” she asked, glancing round her with a quick catch of her breath.

“Not by a jugfull,” said bluff Kenton, interrupting. “See hyar, cunnel, ef you’ve come acrost a trail ahead, I’ve found ’nuther. Them ornery cusses is arter us; and ef we wait hyar, we’ll hev to fight afore we’re two hours older. So now.”

Boone looked keenly at his friend.

“How do you know, Simon?” he asked.

“I heern ’em,” said Kenton, laconically.

“Heard what?—shots, yells? I heard nothing.”

And the great hunter looked doubtfully at Kenton, for he had never yet met his own match for keenness of senses.

Kenton held up his hand for them to listen. A moment after the faint crack of a rifle echoed far away in the rear.