Part 20 (2/2)
”Ah! speak them then!” said I, suddenly conceiving a hope. ”Hear you that sound in the forest?”
We heard no sound, save that of the water grumbling and surging at our feet. We answered in the negative. ”You hear it not? Ha, ha, ha!
where are your ears? It is ringing in mine. All day I have heard it.
Listen! there it is again!”
”She's a mockin' us,” muttered my companion; ”thar ain't no soun' in partickler.”
”No? we cannot hear it; you are mocking us,” I rejoined, addressing myself to the brown-skinned, sibyl. ”Ha! ha! ha! It is _it_ that is mocking you. It mocks you, and yet it is not the mocking-bird. It is not the dove cooing gently to his mate, nor the screaming of the owl.
It is the cuckoo that mocks you! ha! ha! the cuckoo! Now, do you hear it, White Eagle? Do _you_ hear it, proud slayer of red panthers? Ha!
it mocks you both!”
”Oh! bother, girl!” exclaimed. Wingrove in a vexed tone; ”ye're a talkin' nonsense.”
”Truth, White Eagle--truth! the black snake has been in your nest; and yours too, slayer of panthers! He has wound himself around your pretty birds, and borne them away in his coils--away over the great desert plains--away to the Big Lake! Ha, ha, ha! In the desert, he will defile them. In the waters of the lake, he will drown them--ha, ha, ha!”
”Them's yur words o' comfort, air they?” cried Wingrove, exasperated to a pitch of fury. ”Durned if I'll bar sech talk! I won't stan' it any longer. Clar out now! We want no croakin' raven hyar. Clar out! or--”
He was not permitted to finish the threat. I saw the girl suddenly drop down from her position on the fence, and glide behind the trunk of a tree. Almost at the same instant a light gleamed along the bank--which might have been mistaken for a flash of lightning, had it not been followed instantaneously by a quick crack--easily recognisable as the report of a pistol! I waited not to witness the effect; but rushed towards the tree--with the design of intercepting the Indian. The blue smoke lingering in the damp air, hindered me from seeing the movements of the girl; but, hurrying onward, I clambered over the fence. Once on the other side, I was beyond the cloud, and could command a view for a score of yards or so around me; but, in that circuit, no human form was to be seen! Beyond it, however, I heard the vengeful, scornful, laugh, pealing its unearthly echoes through the columned aisles of the forest!
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.
THE HOROLOGE OF THE DEAD HORSE.
With inquiring eye and anxious heart, I turned towards the spot where I had left my companion. To my joy, he was still upon his feet, and coming towards me. I could see blood dripping from his fingers, and a crimson-stained rent in the sleeve of his buckskin s.h.i.+rt; but the careless air with which he was regarding it, at once set my mind at rest. He was smiling: there could not be much danger in the wound? It proved so in effect. The bullet had pa.s.sed through the muscular part of the left forearm--only tearing the flesh. The wound did not even require a surgeon. The haemorrhage once checked, the dressing which my experience enabled me to give it was sufficient; and kept slung a few days it would be certain to heal.
Unpleasant as was the incident, it seemed to affect my companion far less than the words that preceded it. The allegorical allusions were but two well understood; and though they added but little to the knowledge already in his possession, that little produced a renewed acerbity of spirit. It affected me equally with my comrade--perhaps more. The figurative revelations of the Indian had put a still darker phase on the affair. The letter of Lilian spoke only of a far country, where gold was dug out of the sand.--California, of course. There was no allusion to the Salt Lake--not one word about a migration to the metropolis of the Mormons. Su-wa-nee's speech, on the other hand, clearly alluded to this place as the goal of the squatter's journey!
How her information could have been obtained, or whence derived, was a mystery; and, though loth to regard it as oracular, I could not divest myself of a certain degree of conviction that her words were true. The mind, ever p.r.o.ne to give a.s.sent to information conveyed by hints and innuendos, too often magnifies this gipsy knowledge; and dwells not upon the means by which it may have been acquired. For this reason gave I weight to the warnings of the brown-skinned sibyl--though uttered only to taunt, and too late to be of service.
The incident altered our design--only so far as to urge us to its more rapid execution; and, without losing time, we turned our attention once more to the pursuit of the fugitives. The first point to be ascertained was the _time_ of their departure.
”If it wan't for the rain,” said the hunter, ”I ked a told it by thar tracks. They must a made some hyar in the mud, while toatin' thar things to the dug-out. The durned rain's washed 'em out--every footmark o' 'em.”
”But the horses? what of them? They could not have gone off in the canoe?”
”I war just thinkin' o' them. The one you seed with Stebbins must a been hired, I reck'n; an' from Kipp's stables. Belike enuf, the skunk tuk him back the same night, and then come agin 'ithout him; or Kipp might a sent a n.i.g.g.e.r to fetch him?”
”But Holt's own horse--the old 'critter,' as you call him?”
”That _diz_ need explainin'. He _must_ a left him ahind. He culdn't a tuk _him_ in the _dug-out_; besides, he wan't worth takin' along. The old thing war clean wore out, an' wuldn't a sold for his weight in corn-shucks. Now, what ked they a done wi' him?”
The speaker cast a glance around, as if seeking for an answer. ”Heigh!”
he exclaimed, pointing to some object, on which he had fixed his glance.
”Yonder we'll find him! See the buzzarts! The old hoss's past prayin'
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