The Hunters of the Ozark

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  THE DEVIL'S PUNCH BOWL.

  It was a thrilling story which Terry Clark had to tell about his ride onthe back of the buffalo, but, after all, it was not so stirring as theexperience which befell Fred Linden, and the Irish lad declared that itsurpassed his own in every respect.

  "Thim Winnebagos are gittin' altogether too plintiful," said he; "whinthey come on horseback as will as on foot, there must be more than wecan take care of, though you managed the three as well as I could havedone the same mesilf. And so ye hit one of 'em whin ye touched off yergun, did ye?"

  "There is no doubt of it, though I am sorry to say that it did not endhis career right away."

  "It'll sarve him the good turn of givin' him time to think what a maanspalpeen he is any way, and that's a good deal. And so ye say they wasmounted on horseback: what has become of thim?"

  "They rode in among the trees over yonder, near where we kindled thefire and cooked the buffalo steak."

  Terry walked out to the edge of the prairie, and shading his eyes,peered in that direction.

  "I can see nuthin' of thim; they must have found out that ye hadn't anyfrinds there after all the fuss ye made, and it may be they will comeback to sittle with ye."

  "If I alone could attend to them, do you think we together have anything to fear?"

  "Of course not, if it's only thim three, but we have seen so many of thespalpeens that they won't be loikely to foind much trouble in scarin' upa few hundred more and makin' it uncomfortable for us."

  "Well," replied Fred, with a sigh, "I am so relieved and thankful toknow how well we got through it all, that I am hopeful we shall have nogreat trouble during the rest of the way. We ought to be able to reachthe camp by to-morrow night if we don't have any interruption."

  The young friends surely had good reason to feel grateful for theirdeliverance from the perils of the morning, and with hopeful hearts theywalked along the margin of the wood until they came to the point wherethe trail turned to the left. Over this they started at a brisk pace,Fred slightly in advance of his companion, for the path was not broadenough for them to walk any other way with freedom.

  "Terry," said the elder, "do you think it possible that the threeWinnebagos with whom I had the trouble could be the three that we metlast night, when we were about to cross the stream?"

  "Niver," was the emphatic reply; "how could they have got around so farin front? It was a good many miles the ither way that we saw the same!"

  "I have thought of that, but, you know, we spent several hours in sleep,during which they might have turned back."

  "But where could they have got their horses?"

  "They may have had them within easy reach?"

  "It couldn't be."

  "I guess you are right; we hadn't a very good view of them last night,though the moon shone on them when they were wading the stream and I hada fancy that one of them looked like the fellow I hit when I fired."

  "All a fancy," insisted Terry.

  "Well, there's no use of guessing, for any way it must be only a guess;but where do you suppose Deerfoot is?"

  "I've been thinkin' of the fellow and it saams to me that it's time heshowed up."

  "I wonder whether he could have passed us in the night."

  "That couldn't be, for he meant to stay near the camp-fire where we lifthim till he found out what the spalpeens were goin' to do, and hecouldn't have got that chance till mornin'."

  "Unless they made a start last night."

  "Which the same they didn't do."

  The boys were more in want of water than food, and fortunately they hadnot gone far when they struck another stream, narrow enough for them toleap across, and which afforded them a draught with which to quenchtheir thirst.

  "Now," said Fred, "since we have had such a good breakfast, we willthink of nothing more to eat until night."

  "I don't know about not _thinkin'_ of the same," said Terry doubtfully,"but I am with ye in agraain' that we won't go out of the path to huntany of the same onless--that is, onless we should think what I'vebrought along isn't aqual to our appetites."

  "We must have passed considerably more than half the distance betweenhome and the camp in the mountains," added the elder, some minuteslater; "so, if all goes well, we ought to be with our friends some timeto-morrow afternoon."

  "I'm of the opinion," remarked the sagacious Terry, "that Deerfut sintus on ahead last night so as to git us out uv the way; thim pritty legsof his can travel so fast that he wanted a chance to stritch the samewithout waitin' fur us."

  "More than likely you are right; whenever he thinks it necessary, hewill branch out ahead of the Winnebagos and overhaul us; so even thoughwe see nothing of him, we ought not to feel much concern."

  "How about the wither, me lad?"

  Fred had noticed since resuming their journey, that the sky, which wasclear and sunshiny in the morning, had become overcast. The sun was nolonger visible, and a chilliness in the air warned them that the fineweather could not last much longer. They had not only been favored inthis respect, but for several days before leaving home equally charmingskies had spanned them. And so, in accordance with the laws of ourchangeable climate, a disagreeable turn was to be expected.

  "I was hopeful that it would keep off until we reached camp," said Fred,looking up through the tree tops at the darkening sky; "but that is toomuch, and we must take it as it comes."

  "Push on as fast as ye choose."

  Taking his friend at his word, Fred broke into a slow, easy trot, notmuch more rapid than an ordinary walking gait, but one which they couldkeep up a long time, where the ground was not too rough. Terry of coursedid the same, and they covered fully two miles in that manner, when theyslackened their pace before an extensive rise of the ground. But forthat, they would have gone much further at the same speed.

  Some fifteen minutes were spent in clambering up the stony incline, whenthey descended into a broad valley, the path still rough and difficultof passage. They recognized a dull but increasing roar as made by arapid torrent, and ere long stopped on the edge of a stream fifty feetwide, which dashed and foamed over the rocks, breaking into eddies, andagitated pools, falling in foamy cataracts and splashing forward againwith a rollicking freedom that formed one of the prettiest and mostromantic sights on which they had ever looked.

  Directly at their feet was a curious formation. By some means at aremote day, a number of hard stones had been flung downward and given aspinning motion, which, acting on the softer sandstone beneath, hadbegun hollowing it out, as if by the chisel of an engraver. Thisstrange operation had gone on for years, until a bowl a dozen feetacross and half as deep had been formed. It was almost mathematicallyround, very smooth and with a tapering shape to the bottom that made theresemblance to an enormous punch bowl strikingly accurate.

  This formation (which in accordance with the taste prevailing in allparts of our country, should be christened the "Devil's Punch Bowl"),was full of limpid water, fed by a slight overflow from above andoverrunning and flowing calmly over the lower rim. In the bottom laythree stones, looking like cannon balls. These were the tools with whichthe stream had carved the Devil's Punch Bowl. Having done their work,they were resting in the bottom, where they had lain for a period thatcould not be guessed.

  Out beyond, a thin sheet of the water hung like a transparent curtainover the edge of the rocks. It was so smooth and unruffled that itseemed stationary, like a film of glass, but, after striking the stonesbelow, it broke into foam, whirlpools and eddies, which helped to formas lovely and picturesque a scene as the most devoted lover of naturecould long to see.

  The picture was so pretty indeed that the boys stood for several minuteslost in admiration. They had never viewed any thing of the kind, and itwas something that would always be a pleasant memory to them.

  But, great as was their admiration, there was a startling question thatcame to them: how was this interesting stream to be crossed?

  In front and up an
d down the bank, the eyes searched in vain for a ford.It was idle to think of ferrying themselves over, while the cascades,pools, eddies and general "upsetting" of a broad deep stream, made itspassage as perilous as that of the rapids nearer home in which the twohad come so near losing their lives.

  "There is no possible way by which we can reach the other side," saidFred, after they had walked a few rods up and down the stream.

  "I don't obsarve any way mesilf," was the response of Terry.

  "But there _must_ be, for how could father and the rest have crossed?"

  "They may have put up a bridge."

  "But where is the bridge? There are no signs of any thing of the kind,"said the bewildered Fred; "they couldn't have made a bridge withoutleaving it behind."

  "The high water has swipt it away."

  Fred stood surveying the stream and the banks, for several minutes,during which he once more walked back and forth, but he was right whenhe said that the place had never been spanned by even the simpleststructure, for it could not have been done without leaving some tracesbehind.

  This being the case, the mystery was greater than ever; for it wascertain that at that hour their friends were many miles distant on theother side.

  "This is a little ahead of any thing I ever heard tell of," remarkedFred, taking off his cap and scratching his head, after the fashion ofTerry when he was puzzled.

  "It couldn't be," ventured the latter, who also had his cap in his handand was stirring up his flaxen locks, "that they carried a bridge alongwith 'em."

  "Impossible!"

  "That's what I thought, as me sicond cousin remarked whin they told himhis uncle carried his shillaleh a half mile and passed two personswithout beltin' 'em over the head."

  "There's something about this which I can not understand."

  Terry turned and looked at him in his quizzical way and solemnlyextended his hand. Fred shook it as he wished, though he was far fromfeeling in a sportive mood.

  "They _must_ have crossed," he added, replacing his cap with someviolence, compressing his lips and shaking his head in a determined way;"do you walk up the bank, while I make a search in the other direction;we _must_ find the explanation."

  The proposition was acted upon, Terry clambering carefully along theslippery bank and over the rocks, until he was fully a hundred yardsfrom his friend, who busied himself in doing the same thing in theopposite direction.

  All at once the Irish lad shouted. Looking up to him, Fred saw that hewas beckoning him to approach.

  "I knew there must be something of the kind," thought Fred, who aftermuch labor placed himself beside his friend.

  To his disappointment, Terry had paused before the worst part of theseries of cascades. It was at the broadest portion of the stream, wherethe falls, whirlpools, eddies and deep water would have turned back themost skillful swimmer.

  "What do you mean?" asked the astonished Fred.

  "I thought I'd show you the place where they _didn't_ cross," was hisreply, and then he broke into the merriest laughter, as well he might,for he had solved the mystery.