XIII. AN APPALLING DANGER.
NOT a second was to be lost. The next moment the boy had across the space and open the door of the steam man. He saw a yet in the bottom, to the wood. Dashing in a from the wagon, he saw it up. He the wide open, so that there might not be a moment's in starting, and the water in the at a proper level. The from the pipe or hat, and the of the boy rose correspondingly.
The great was that the Indians would return he start. He him, and it was with a with that he whoops, and saw at the same a number of red-skins toward him.
The boy gave a to the wagon, which to the steam man, and it started, at a gait, but to its old-fashioned run.
It was just in the of time, for two minutes later the would have been upon him. As it was, when they saw the moving off they paused for a moment in amazement.
But their previous with the had it of all its attributes, and their but a seconds. The next moment they that there was some agency about it, and their blood-curdling yells, they started in full pursuit. But by this time the steam was to his regular pace, and was over the like a dromedary. For a time the Indians gained, then the stationary, and then he away from them.
Still the the until satisfied of its hopelessness, when they gave it up and in the direction of the mountains.
The fellow, in his triumph, not avoid in the wagon, and his at his pursuers. The act came near his life, for it was by the of guns, and the of the about his ears him to into his seat as as he had from it.
The was now well advanced, and hungry, Johnny Brainerd was to to camp.
The was passed, and the sun was just setting as he up a of Wolf Ravine.
For some reason, the nearer he approached 'camp,' as it was called, a to came over him. It was a of evil, which he it either to shake off or to define, and that was why he some away.
From where he it was to see his two friends at work, but at that time of day he they were to stop work and come out upon the for the purpose of the of evening. At the same time, when such threatened, they were to have one of their number, either all or a part of the time, on the ground above, where the approach of be detected.
The of anything like a the boy's apprehensions, and when he had waited some fifteen minutes without anything of his friends he uneasy.
'What if they had been killed? What if they were prisoners? What if a hundred Indians were at that moment in the of Wolf Ravine?
Such and were the questions which the boy asked himself, and which, with all his shrewdness, he was unable to answer.
In the of attention he set up a with the whistle, which so loud on the still air that it must have gone miles away over the level prairie.
There being no response to this he it up for some time, but it still failed, and all this him in the that 'something was up.'
What that particular something was it was to say, so long as he sat in the wagon, and for five minutes he to decide it was best to out and make a on his own or where, in case of danger, he safety in flight.
As the day away, and he still failed to see or anything of his friends, he to out and make an of the ravine.
Accordingly he to the ground, but had when a signal, something a whistle, his ear, and he again, satisfied that the was as a signal, and that it him, although from friend or he only conjecture.
However, his was such that he moved a hundred yards or so away from the ravine, where there was less of being by any upon the part of the red-skins.
From this he what be of the ravine. It from the of the bank, so that he a view of the and upon the opposite side. Some of the trees in the narrow rose to such a that one-half or two-thirds of them were to view.
It was while the boy was at these that he a movement in one of the limbs, which his attention.
A moment him that the motion was by agency, and he his in the of the of the movement.
The his uncertain; but he either saw, or he saw, a dark object among the which the of Baldy Bicknell, the trapper.
Johnny Brainerd would have almost anything in the world he have what it all meant.
But the of these was of the most kind; and, after a moment's with himself, he moving away, just as the of him of the which he had escaped.
