262 ALMOST SHOT. 



give in to sich things. I reckon them three wur the 

 very skunks as lifted our plunder, an' ef thur above 

 ground thur bound to show." 



With a determination to prosecute his search, old 

 Jake advanced stealthily, keeping as near the creek as 

 the nature of the ground would allow, and the while 

 glancing sharply to right and left, expecting each 

 instant to detect the savages lurking beneath the 

 shadow of the banks. 



At the bend in the stream, where its farther course 

 became visible, the hunter paused a moment in sur- 

 prise. He could see down the creek for a considerable 

 distance ; but, as we have seen, the raft and its occu- 

 pants were nowhere visible. 



While carefully separating the branches as he 

 passed through them, a twig snapped sharply, echoing 

 in the death-like silence from bank to bank of the 

 stream. 



The hunter suddenly ceased to move, and listened 

 intently. A distant rustle caught his ear, and then all 

 was still. He was about to move forward again, when 

 a flash shot out of the thick brushwood which lined the 

 brink of the creek, some hundred yards away, and at 

 the same instant a bullet hissed so close past his head 

 as actually to carry away a lock of hair from under the 

 verge of his coonskin cap ! 



Jake was too experienced in the arts of Indian war- 

 fare not to know what course to take. The moment 

 the report of the rifle reached him he sank out of sight 



