*CHAPTER XXX*
*THE BACKWARD TRACK*
Landless turned to the pathway by which they had come, but the Indianshook his head, and pointing to the stream which, making a sudden turn,brawled along at their very feet, stepped noiselessly down into thewater, first, however, possessing himself of Luiz Sebastian's gun, whichlay upon the ground beside the hut. Landless, following him in silence,would have turned his face towards the river, but again theSusquehannock shook his head and began to make his way slowly and warilyup stream.
The other knew how to obey. Holding with one arm the unconscious formof the woman he had come so many leagues to seek, and with the othersteadying himself by boulder and projecting cliff, he followed hiscompanion past the sleeping Ricahecrians, out of the shadow of the greatarch, into the splendor of the moonlight beyond. It was not until theyhad gone a long distance, past vast, scarred cliffs, through close,dark, scented tunnels formed by the overarching boughs of greatarbor-vitaes, up smooth slides where the water came down upon them inlong, unbroken, glassy green slopes, that Landless said, in a low voice:"Why do we go up this stream instead of back to the river? It is theirroad we are traveling."
The faint, reluctant smile of the Indian crossed the Susquehannock'sface. "The white man is very wise except when he is in the woods. Thenhe is as if every brook ran fire-water and he had drunk of them all. Apappoose could trick him. When these Algonquin dogs wake and find thefawn fled and the yellow slave killed, they will cast about for ourtrail, and they will find that we came up from the river. Then, whenthey find no backward track, but only that we entered the water there,before the maiden's hut, they will think that we have gone down thestream, back to the river. They will go down to the river themselves,but when they have reached it they will not know what to do. They willthink, 'They who come after the Ricahecrians into the Blue Mountainsmust be many, with great hearts and with guns.' They will think, 'Theycame in boats, and one of their braves and one Iroquois, stealing upthis stream, came upon the Ricahecrians when Kiwassa had closed theireyes and their ears, and stole away the fawn that the Ricahecrians hadtaken, and killed the man who fled with them from the palefaces.' Andit will take a long time for them to find that there were no boats andthat but two real men have followed them into the Blue Mountains, for Icovered our trail where this stream runs into the river very carefully.After a while they will find it, and after another while they will findthat the chief of the Conestogas and his white brother and the maidenhave gone up the stream, and they will come after us. But that will notbe until after the full sun power, and by then we must be far fromhere."
"It is good," said Landless briefly. "Monakatocka has the wisdom of thewoods."
"Monakatocka is a great chief," was the sententious reply.
"Do you think they will follow us when they find how greatly we have thestart of them?"
"They will be upon our track, sun after sun, keen-eyed as the hawk,tireless as the wild horses, hungry as the wolf, until we reach thetribes that are friendly to the palefaces. And that will be many sunsfrom now. I told my brother that we followed Death into the BlueMountains. Now Death is upon our trail."
They came to a rivulet that emptied itself into the larger stream, andthe Susquehannock led the way up its bed. Presently they reached agently sloping mass of bare stone, a low hill running some distance backfrom the margin of the stream.
"Good," grunted the Susquehannock. "The moccasin will make no mark herethat the sun will not wipe out."
They clambered out upon the rock and stood looking down the ravinethrough which they had come. "My brother is tired," said the Indian."Monakatocka will carry the maiden."
"I am not tired," Landless answered.
The Indian looked at the face, thrown back upon the other's shoulder."She is fair, and whiter than the flowers the maidens pluck from thebosom of the pleasant river."
"She is coming to herself," said Landless, and laid her gently down uponthe rock.
Presently she opened her eyes quietly upon him as he knelt beside her."You came," she said dreamily. "I dreamt that you would. Where are myfather and my cousin?"
"Seeking you still, madam, I doubt not, though I have not seen themsince the day after you were taken. They went up the Pamunkey and somissed you. Thanks to this Susquehannock, I am more fortunate."
She lay and looked at him calmly, no surprise, but only a great peace inher face. "The mulatto," she said, "I feared him more than all therest. When I saw him enter the hut I prayed for death. Did you killhim?"
"I trust so," said Landless, "but I am not certain, I was in too greathaste to make sure."
"I do not care," she said. "You will not let him hurt me--if helives--nor let the Indians take me again?"
"No, madam," Landless said.
She smiled like a child and closed her eyes. In the moonlight whichblanched her streaming robe and her loosened hair that, falling to herknees, wrapped her in a mantle of spun gold, she looked a wraith, acreature woven of the mist of the stream below, a Lorelei sleeping uponher rock. Landless, still upon hi