Adrift in the Wilds; Or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys by Ellis (books to read for beginners .TXT) 📗

to secure the daring hunter, who had so audaciously exposed himself to their anger. It required some time for them to find the exact spot where the deer had fallen, and when they did so, they followed him readily by the blood which had trickled from its drooping head, which as Tim bore his prize away he little dreamed would betray the course he took.

When the point of Tim's fall was reached, all signs of his trail ceased, and they supposed he had checked the flow of blood, and thus concealed his tracks. The surface over which he traversed being rock and flinty ground, left no evidence of his passage; and resigning, therefore, the pursuit in this manner, they made their way leisurely down to the river and waited until the hunter appeared.

Tim's heart beat high with hope when he found himself close by the stream and saw nothing of his pursuers. The hasty signal given by Elwood Brandon, as we have shown, caused him some uneasiness, but not being repeated, and being very anxious to get back to the island, he placed the deer in the canoe and paddled away.

CHAPTER XXV. A SINGULAR ESCAPE.

The shot from the treacherous Indian upon the shore was the first intelligent warning Tim had that he was discovered by them. The kind Providence who had so often turned aside the dangerous missile still protected him, and when he so suddenly dropped to the bottom of his canoe, it was with a bullet-hole through his coat but not through his body.

"Another illigant compliment to mesilf that it would afford me great pleasure to return, and if you'll only be kind enough to wait a few moments, I'll do the same."

But ere he could bring his gun to bear, the wild shot from the island drove the savages to cover, and raised the Irishman's finger that was pressing the trigger.

We have already told how, when he undertook to use the paddle, he found it too dangerous, and coming again behind the deer, he floated down the current. This, after the severe labor he had undergone, was an agreeable change, but he was not long in discovering it was dangerous. He was drifting away from his friends, and the further he went the greater did the danger become to both parties. He speedily discovered that the Indians were following him, and the interposing body of the black-tailed deer was a most effectual protection. More than his own bullets were buried in it ere he had gone a half-mile down stream.

"If I entertained a small doubt that yez was killed, I couldn't howld it with them bullets rattlin' in your hide, me owld friend."

The efforts of a child, if steadily persevered in, would move the Great Eastern in calm water, and Tim was not long in making the discovery that, if he could not use the paddle, he still was able to exert a motive power upon the canoe by a very slight means.

Reaching his hand over the side, he began paddling the water, and soon had the gratifying consciousness that he was moving across the river. True, it was slow, but it was nevertheless certain and positive, and was carrying him further away from his troublesome pursuers, and must eventually bring him against the western shore.

But when the island disappeared from view, and he had barely crossed the center of the stream, he begun to think that this species of locomotion was rather tardy, and he partially came to the sitting position and ventured to take his paddle in hand. A discharge from the shore warned him of the danger he ran, and he was reluctantly forced to drop his head again and resort to his tedious method of moving.

By this time the afternoon was well advanced, and it looked as though it would be fully dark before Tim could regain the ground he had lost. Now and then he peered over the top of the deer to see whether he could possibly catch sight of his acquaintances, but they whisked from cover to cover so dexterously that he had not the encouragement even to hope for success, and so he did not fire.

But a new fear took possession of the fugitive. If they were Indians, it was to be expected that they had canoes somewhere, and if they were speedily found, he would as speedily be overhauled.

"In which case Tim O'Rooney will lose his daar, and be the same towken lose himself, and the boys won't get their dinner."

He squinted at the sun, now low in the sky, and quickly asked himself:

"If a man doesn't git his dinner, and ates half-way atween noon and midnight, is it his dinner or supper? But that is a mighty question, is the same."

He evidently concluded it was too vast for him to decide, for he speedily dismissed it and turned his attention to that which more nearly concerned him. Still toiling with his hand, much in the same manner that a child would dabble in the water, he kept up the tardy movement of the canoe until he began to grow fearless again, and he took his paddle once more.

Now, when it was almost too late, he found that he could use it without danger to himself. By bending his body forward, the deer protected him and he could labor with impunity.

"Tim O'Rooney, I fears yez are lacking in the iliments which go to make up a mon of sense. Why didn't yez think of this when it would have done yez more good?"

When he was yet within a few yards of shore, he looked back and was not a little frightened to see that the savages had launched a canoe and were coming across the river with the speed of the swallow.

"Whisht now! but that is onexpected," said he, as he redoubled his own exertions. Observing that his pursuers were rapidly gaining, he suddenly recalled an artifice that he had seen practiced during his experience in the mines years before. Catching up his rifle, he aimed it at the advancing Indians.

Quick as a flash they ducked their heads and held up the two paddles they were using as a protection against the expected bullet. But it was not Tim's purpose to fire. He knew better than to do that, for ere he could have reloaded they would have been upon him.

The minute they stooped he lowered his gun and caught up his paddle and used it furiously. In this he was imitated by the Indians, whose superior skill sent their frail vessel forward with such velocity that it looked as if they would reach the shore but a short distance behind him.

Again he raised his gun, and as before they attempted to screen themselves from danger, while the next impulse of his paddle sent his canoe high up the bank, and he sprung out and plunged into the woods.

Tim O'Rooney had no thought of the particular manner in which he was to effect his escape. His one desire was to get away from them. The probabilities are that, beyond all doubt, he would have been speedily overtaken and slain but for one of those singular occurrences which do not happen to a man more than once in a life-time, and which seem to show unmistakably that Providence often interferes directly in favor of the innocent and distressed.

He had run perhaps a couple of hundred yards, or thereabouts, when a peculiar whoop from his pursuers announced that they had landed and were now coming speedily behind him. He knew that he had no chance in running, and was looking about him for some place in which to take shelter, when a furious growl startled him and he found himself within a dozen feet from enormous grizzly bear. This quadruped seemed anxious for a fight, for he came straight at the fugitive, who might certainly be excused for being dazed at the combination of dangers by which he was surrounded.

That of the grizzly bear was the greatest; for with mouth open and his red tongue lolling out he came fiercely at him. His gait was awkward and shambling, but he managed to get over the ground very rapidly. Indeed, the danger was so imminent that Tim, seeing there was no choice, raised his gun and fired at the monster.

The bullet struck him near the head, but it did not kill him, nor did it cause him to fall, but it bewildered him, and he rose on his hind feet and clawed the air as if the bullet was a splinter and he was seeking to pluck it from his flesh.

This bewilderment was the means of Tim being saved. Before the animal had entirely recovered, he had darted out of sight, and when the Indians came up the bear was just in "fighting trim," and immediately made at them. Consequently they were compelled to give over all thoughts of the flying hunter and attend to their own personal safety. What the final result was Tim never learned, and we cannot speak with certainty.

CHAPTER XXVI. SHASTA'S HUNT.

If the Pah Utah in the extremity of his suffering had been betrayed into the extraordinary weakness of manifesting it, he now seemed anxious to make amends for the humiliating fact. It may have been that among his own people he would have restrained those utterances which declared his agony, and borne the utmost with the stoicism of his race; but knowing that civilization does not teach such outward indifference to pain, he had adopted the surest means to reach the sympathy of the white strangers; or, if we may conjecture still further, the consciousness of the instinctive feud between the American and Caucasian race told him that the plan he took was the only one that offered safety to himself. What reason had he to believe that the hunters were kind of heart? If he hid his distress, would he not be treated as a well Indian? And was there any but the one common ground upon which the two races met?

But the fever had passed and he was himself again. True, he was still feeble, and his limbs trembled at times like those of an old man; but the disease had gone, and the stern, unbending will had resumed its sway. He was not a child, but he was Shasta, the Pah Utah Indian.

The inexperience of Elwood Brandon and Howard Lawrence with these strange people made this savage an enigma to them. As he stood with his arms folded, his blanket wrapped around him, his long black hair streaming over his shoulders, and the mingling of the paint on his crown and over his face, and his midnight eyes fixed upon them, it was hard indeed to conjecture the thoughts filtrating through his brain.

But there is a language in which the human heart can speak—that of emotion. The boys felt no fear—ingratitude is not an element of the savage character, though sad to say it is sometimes manifested among us of greater moral pretensions.

He looked at them as they came up and paused a few feet from him.

"You seem to be better?" asked Elwood, feeling it incumbent that he should make some remark, even though it was incomprehensible to their dusky friend. He muttered something and then stretched out his arms as if to show that he had recovered from his illness.

At this point Terror went up to the savage and snuffed around him, as if to satisfy himself of his identity. The latter laid his hand upon his knife and watched the dog narrowly, but he appeared to judge the animal by the company, and quietly removed his hand and folded his arms again.

He stood thus a moment, when he pointed to the eastern shore and then down the river, nodding his head and gesticulating somewhat excitedly. The boys in return nodded, which satisfied the aborigine. All at once he moved off and strode rapidly to the other side of the island, where he drew forth a tiny canoe and shoved it into the water.