第70章 IN THE DARK LAND(4)

"Please God the weather mends," he muttered."I've got to find old Jim."Very early next morning there was a consultation.Lovelle had not appeared and hunting was impossible on two shoots of powder.It was arranged that two of them should keep camp that day by the limestone cliff while Daniel Boone went in search of the missing man, for it was possible that Jim Lovelle had gone to seek ammunition from friendly Indians.If he did not turn up or if he returned without powder, there would be nothing for it but to send a messenger back through the Gap for supplies.

The dawn was blue and cloudless and the air had the freshness of a second spring.The autumn colour glowed once more, only a little tarnished; the gold was now copper, the scarlet and vermilion were dulling to crimson.

Boone took the road at the earliest light and made for the place where the day before he had parted from Lovelle.When alone he had the habit of talking to himself in an undertone."Jim was hunting down the west bank of that there crick, and I heard a shot about noon beyond them big oaks, so Ireckon he'd left the water and gotten on the ridge." He picked up the trail and followed it with difficulty, for the rain had flattened out the prints.

At one point he halted and considered."That's queer," he muttered."Jim was running here.It wasn't game, neither, for there's no sign of their tracks." He pointed to the zig-zag of moccasin prints in a patch of gravel.

"That's the way a man sets his feet when he's in a hurry,"A little later he stood and sniffed, with his brows wrinkled.He made an epic figure as he leaned forward, every sense strained, every muscle alert, slim and shapely as a Greek--the eternal pathfinder.Very gently he smelled the branches of a mulberry thicket.

"There's been an Indian here," he meditated."I kinder smell the grease on them twigs.In a hurry, too, or he wouldn't have left his stink behind...

.In war trim, I reckon." And he took a tiny wisp of scarlet feather from a fork.

Like a hound he nosed about the ground till he found something."Here's his print;" he said "He was a-followin' Jim, for see! he has his foot in Jim's track.I don't like it.I'm fear'd of what's comin'."Slowly and painfully he traced the footing, which led through the thicket towards a long ridge running northward.In an open grassy place he almost cried out."The redskin and Jim was friends.See, here's their prints side by side, going slow.What in thunder was old Jim up to?"The trail was plainer now, and led along the scarp of the ridge to a little promontory which gave a great prospect over the flaming forests and yellow glades.Boone found a crinkle of rock where he flung himself down."It's plain enough," he said."They come up here to spy.They were fear'd of something, and whatever it was it was coming from the west.See, they kep'

under the east side of this ridge so as not to be seen, and they settled down to spy whar they couldn't be obsarved from below.I reckon Jim and the redskin had a pretty good eye for cover."He examined every inch of the eyrie, sniffing like.a pointer dog."I'm plumb puzzled about this redskin," he confessed."Shawnee, Cherokee, Chickasaw--it ain't likely Jim would have dealings with 'em.It might be one of them Far Indians."It appeared as if Lovelle had spent most of the previous afternoon on the ridge, for he found the remains of his night's fire half way down the north side in a hollow thatched with vines.It was now about three o'clock.

Boone, stepping delicately, examined the ashes, and then sat himself on the ground and brooded.

When at last he lifted his eyes his face was perplexed.

"I can't make it out nohow.Jim and this Indian was good friends.They were feelin' pretty safe, for they made a mighty careless fire and didn't stop to tidy it up.But likewise they was restless, for they started out long before morning....I read it this way.Jim met a redskin that he knowed before and thought he could trust anyhow, and he's gone off with him seeking powder.It'd be like Jim to dash off alone and play his hand like that.He figured he'd come back to us with what we needed and that we'd have the sense to wait for him.I guess that's right.But I m uneasy about the redskin.If he's from north of the river, there's a Mingo camp somewhere about and they've gone there....I never had much notion of Seneca Indians, and I reckon Jim's took a big risk."All evening he followed the trail, which crossed the low hills into the corn-brakes and woodlands of a broader valley.Presently he saw that he had been right, and that Lovelle and the Indian had begun their journey in the night, for the prints showed like those of travellers in darkness.Before sunset Boone grew very anxious.He found traces converging, till a clear path was worn in the grass like a regulation war trail.It was not one of the known trails, so it had been made for a purpose; he found on tree trunks the tiny blazons of the scouts who had been sent ahead to survey it.

It was a war party of Mingos, or whoever they might be, and he did not like it.He was puzzled to know what purchase Jim could have with those outland folk....And yet he had been on friendly terms with the scout he had picked up....Another fact disturbed him.Lovelle's print had been clear enough till the other Indians joined him.The light was bad, but now that print seemed to have disappeared.It might be due to the general thronging of marks in the trail, but it might be that Jim was a prisoner, trussed and helpless.