Part 11 (1/2)

As Fred stood trembling and listening, his shuddering fear collapsed; for the sound which had transfixed him with such dread, he now recognized as the whistling of the wind, which, slight in itself, was still manipulated in some peculiar fas.h.i.+on by a nook in the rocks overhead.

”That does sound odd enough to scare a person,” he muttered, as he resumed his walk. ”It must be a regular trumpet-blast when the wind is high, for there isn't much now.”

The two incidents resulting so harmlessly, Fred was inspired with greater confidence, and advanced at a more rapid walk along the ravine, suffering no check until he had gone fully a mile further. Just then, while striding along with increasing courage, he came to a place where the side of the ravine was perpendicular for two or three hundred feet.

He was close to this, so as to use the protection of the shadow, and was dreaming of no danger, when a rattling of gravel and debris caused him to look up, and he saw an immense ma.s.s of rock, that had become loosened in some way, descending straight for his head.

CHAPTER XIX. THE MYSTERIOUS PURSUER

Young Munson made a sudden bound outward, and, just as he did so, a ma.s.s of rock weighing fully a dozen tons, fell upon the precise spot where he had stood, missing him so narrowly that the blast of wind, or rather concussion of the air, was plainly felt. The boulder broke into several pieces, its momentum being so terrific that the ground for several feet around was jarred as if by an earthquake.

The lad was overcome for a moment or two, for he realized how narrow his escape was from a terrible and instantaneous death.

”That was a little closer than I ever want to come again,” he exclaimed.

”It seems to me that a person is always likely to get killed, no matter where he is or what he is doing. I don't suppose that anybody threw that down at me,” he continued, in a half-doubting voice, as he stepped a few paces back and again peered into the gloom.

If it had been during the day-time, he might have suspected that some scamp had managed to pry the ma.s.s loose, and to send it cras.h.i.+ng downward straight for his head. But as the case stood, such a thing could not have taken place.

Fred continued his flight until nearly midnight, by which time his fatigue became so great that he began to hunt a place in which to spend the remainder of the night. He had not yet seen any wild animals, and was hopeful that he would suffer no disturbance from them. The single charge of his rifle was to precious to be thrown away upon any such game as that.

The lad was in the very act of leaving the ravine, when his step was arrested by a sound too distinct to be mistaken. It was not imagination this time, and he paused to identify it. The sound was faint and of the nature of a jarring or murmur. He suspected that it was caused by horses' hoofs, and he listened but a few minutes when he became certain that such was the fact.

”There must be a big lot of them,” he thought, as he listened to the sound growing plainer and plainer every minute. ”I wonder if Lone Wolf and his men have not done what they started to do and are going round home again?”

Judging from the clamping hoofs, such might have been the case. At all events, there was every reason for believing that a party of hors.e.m.e.n were in the ravine and that they were headed in his direction.

Fred made up his mind to wait where he was until they pa.s.sed by. He had no fear of being seen, when the opportunity for hiding was all that could be desired, and, lying flat upon his face, he awaited the result.

Nearer and nearer came the tramp, tramp, the noise of hoofs mingling in a dull thud that sounded oddly in the stillness of the night to the watching and listening lad.

”Here they come,” he muttered, before he saw them; but the words were hardly out of his mouth when a shadowy figure came into view, instantly followed by a score of others, all mingling and blending in one indistinguishable ma.s.s.

The forms of animals and riders were plainly discernible, but they came in too promiscuous fas.h.i.+on to be counted, and they were gone almost as soon as they were seen. Fred was confident that thirty warriors galloped by him in the stillness of the night.

”I believe it was Lone Wolf and some of his men,” he muttered, as he clambered down from his place among the rocks. Having been thoroughly awakened by what he had seen, he determined to walk an hour or more longer, for he felt that the best time for him to journey was during the protecting darkness of night.

”There ain't anybody to make me get up early,” he reasoned, ”and when I go to sleep I can stick to it as long as I want to. It seems to me that if I walk all I can tonight, and keep at it the most of tomorrow, I ought to be somewhere near the place where we came in among these mountains. Then a day or two's tramping over the back trail will take me pretty nearly to New Boston--that is, if n.o.body gobbles me up. I've got a rough road before me, but G.o.d has guided me thus far, and I'll trust him clean through. I've had some wonderful escapes to tell about--”

He was too wide awake and too much on the alert to forget precisely where he was, or to fail to take in whatever should occur of an alarming nature. That which now startled him and suddenly cut short his musings was the sound of a horse's hoofs, close behind him.

Fred had been duped by his own fears and imaginings so many times that he could not be served so again, and, as he was not apprehending anything of the kind at that moment, there was no possibility of escape from the reality of the sound. He halted and turned his head like lightning, grasping his rifle in his nervous, determined way as he peered back into the gloom, whispering to himself:

”That must be Lone Wolf or some of the warriors coming back to look for me.”

This was rather vague theorizing, however. Look and stare as much as he chose, he could detect nothing that resembled man or animal. He shrank to one side and waited several minutes, in the hope that the thing would explain itself. But it did not, and, after waiting some time, he resumed his journey along the ravine, keeping close to the shadow on the right side, and using eyes and ears to guard against the insidious approach of any kind of foe.

Sometimes, under such circ.u.mstances, when a sound has very nearly or quite died out In the stillness, there seems to come a peculiar eddy or turn of wind, or that which causes the sound, pa.s.ses for an instant at a point which is so situated as to impel the waves of air directly to the ear of the listener. Fred did not exactly understand how this thing could happen, but he had known of something of the kind, and he was gradually bringing himself to explain the thing in that fas.h.i.+on, when his theory was upset by such a sudden, violent rattling of hoofs, so close behind him, that he leaped to one side, fearful of being trampled upon.