HOME AGAIN. 281 



Hardly had the different scouts been sent on their 

 errand before one came hurrying back with the Avord that 

 the boats were descending the river again, and, hke a 

 j)ack of dogs on a fresh scent, the whole band hurried 

 down to where a j^oint ran out into the river. They 

 leaped from root to root, and crossed the marsh where a 

 hare would have floundered m the mud ; they swung 

 themselves, by hanging vines, over deep pools of black 

 water, and their tawny bodies as lithe as the copper-head 

 snakes that slid from the logs they trod on, appeared and 

 disajDpeared through the tangled woods until they at 

 length reached the -point of land around which the boats 

 were sweeping, impelled by four oars each, and keeping 

 well out in the river. Tustenuggee w^atched the flotilla 

 commg with an eye that would have transfixed a lonely 

 ti'aveller, so much had it grown and brightened by excite- 

 ment. He knew his prey was escaping, for it would be 

 a long shot to those canoes, and no matter how strong 

 his own force, he would be unwilling to hazard an open 

 attack on sixteen men as accustomed to the rifle as those 

 before Mm, and one of those Ingin Mike, whose prowess 

 all knew and feared. The Indians were careful not to be 

 seen from the boats, and crouched down behind any 

 cover they could find, hoping that some of the canoes 

 might approach near enough to afibrd them a shot. But 

 Mike, who led the fugitive fleet, Avas too wary for 

 that, but inclined the boats away from a pomt that he 

 was conscious might afford a cover to a foe, and nearer 

 the low timber that, growing in the water, would form 



