LEATHERSTOCKING TALES – Complete Collection. Джеймс Фенимор Купер

two adventurers to make their way by land from the point where they had been left to that whence the call had come, but it was not probable that they would adopt such a course. Had the camp been deserted they would have summoned Deerslayer to the shore, and, did it prove to be peopled, there could be no sufficient motive for circling it, in order to re-embark at so great a distance. Should he obey the signal, and be drawn away from the landing, the lives of those who depended on him might be the forfeit — and, should he neglect the call, on the supposition that it had been really made, the consequences might be equally disastrous, though from a different cause. In this indecision he waited, trusting that the call, whether feigned or natural, would be speedily renewed. Nor was he mistaken. A very few minutes elapsed before the same shrill warning cry was repeated, and from the same part of the lake. This time, being on the alert, his senses were not deceived. Although he had often heard admirable imitations of this bird, and was no mean adept himself in raising its notes, he felt satisfied that Hurry, to whose efforts in that way he had attended, could never so completely and closely follow nature. He determined, therefore, to disregard that cry, and to wait for one less perfect and nearer at hand.

      Deerslayer had hardly come to this determination, when the profound stillness of night and solitude was broken by a cry so startling, as to drive all recollection of the more melancholy call of the loon from the listener’s mind. It was a shriek of agony, that came either from one of the female sex, or from a boy so young as not yet to have attained a manly voice. This appeal could not be mistaken. Heart rending terror — if not writhing agony — was in the sounds, and the anguish that had awakened them was as sudden as it was fearful. The young man released his hold of the rush, and dashed his paddle into the water; to do, he knew not what — to steer, he knew not whither. A very few moments, however, removed his indecision. The breaking of branches, the cracking of dried sticks, and the fall of feet were distinctly audible; the sounds appearing to approach the water though in a direction that led diagonally towards the shore, and a little farther north than the spot that Deerslayer had been ordered to keep near. Following this clue, the young man urged the canoe ahead, paying but little attention to the manner in which he might betray its presence. He had reached a part of the shore, where its immediate bank was tolerably high and quite steep. Men were evidently threshing through the bushes and trees on the summit of this bank, following the line of the shore, as if those who fled sought a favorable place for descending. Just at this instant five or six rifles flashed, and the opposite hills gave back, as usual, the sharp reports in prolonged rolling echoes. One or two shrieks, like those which escape the bravest when suddenly overcome by unexpected anguish and alarm, followed; and then the threshing among the bushes was renewed, in a way to show that man was grappling with man.

      “Slippery devil!” shouted Hurry with the fury of disappointment-“his skin’s greased! I sha’n’t grapple! Take that for your cunning!”

      The words were followed by the fall of some heavy object among the smaller trees that fringed the bank, appearing to Deerslayer as if his gigantic associate had hurled an enemy from him in this unceremonious manner. Again the flight and pursuit were renewed, and then the young man saw a human form break down the hill, and rush several yards into the water. At this critical moment the canoe was just near enough to the spot to allow this movement, which was accompanied by no little noise, to be seen, and feeling that there he must take in his companion, if anywhere, Deerslayer urged the canoe forward to the rescue. His paddle had not been raised twice, when the voice of Hurry was heard filling the air with imprecations, and he rolled on the narrow beach, literally loaded down with enemies. While prostrate, and almost smothered with his foes, the athletic frontierman gave his loon-call, in a manner that would have excited laughter under circumstances less terrific. The figure in the water seemed suddenly to repent his own flight, and rushed to the shore to aid his companion, but was met and immediately overpowered by half a dozen fresh pursuers, who, just then, came leaping down the bank.

      “Let up, you painted riptyles — let up!” cried Hurry, too hard pressed to be particular about the terms he used; “isn’t it enough that I am withed like a saw-log that ye must choke too!”

      This speech satisfied Deerslayer that his friends were prisoners, and that to land would be to share their fate He was already within a hundred feet of the shore, when a few timely strokes of the paddle not only arrested his advance, but forced him off to six or eight times that distance from his enemies. Luckily for him, all of the Indians had dropped their rifles in the pursuit, or this retreat might not have been effected with impunity; though no one had noted the canoe in the first confusion of the melee.

      “Keep off the land, lad,” called out Hutter; “the girls depend only on you, now; you will want all your caution to escape these savages. Keep off, and God prosper you, as you aid my children!”

      There was little sympathy in general between Hutter and the young man, but the bodily and mental anguish with which this appeal was made served at the moment to conceal from the latter the former’s faults. He saw only the father in his sufferings, and resolved at once to give a pledge of fidelity to its interests, and to be faithful to his word.

      “Put your heart at ease, Master Hutter,” he called out; “the gals shall be looked to, as well as the castle. The inimy has got the shore, ’tis no use to deny, but he hasn’t got the water. Providence has the charge of all, and no one can say what will come of it; but, if good-will can sarve you and your’n, depend on that much. My exper’ence is small, but my will is good.”

      “Ay, ay, Deerslayer,” returned Hurry, in this stentorian voice, which was losing some of its heartiness, notwithstanding,—“Ay, ay, Deerslayer. You mean well enough, but what can you do? You’re no great matter in the best of times, and such a person is not likely to turn out a miracle in the worst. If there’s one savage on this lake shore, there’s forty, and that’s an army you ar’n’t the man to overcome. The best way, in my judgment, will be to make a straight course to the castle; get the gals into the canoe, with a few eatables; then strike off for the corner of the lake where we came in, and take the best trail for the Mohawk. These devils won’t know where to look for you for some hours, and if they did, and went off hot in the pursuit, they must turn either the foot or the head of the lake to get at you. That’s my judgment in the matter; and if old Tom here wishes to make his last will and testament in a manner favorable to his darters, he’ll say the same.”

      “’Twill never do, young man,” rejoined Hutter. “The enemy has scouts out at this moment, looking for canoes, and you’ll be seen and taken. Trust to the castle; and above all things, keep clear of the land. Hold out a week, and parties from the garrisons will drive the savages off.”

      “‘Twon’t be four-and-twenty hours, old fellow, afore these foxes will be rafting off to storm your castle,” interrupted Hurry, with more of the heat of argument than might be expected from a man who was bound and a captive, and about whom nothing could be called free but his opinions and his tongue. “Your advice has a stout sound, but it will have a fatal tarmination. If you or I was in the house, we might hold out a few days, but remember that this lad has never seen an inimy afore tonight, and is what you yourself called settlement-conscienced; though for my part, I think the consciences in the settlements pretty much the same as they are out here in the woods. These savages are making signs, Deerslayer, for me to encourage you to come ashore with the canoe; but that I’ll never do, as it’s ag’in reason and natur’. As for old Tom and myself, whether they’ll scalp us tonight, keep us for the torture by fire, or carry us to Canada, is more than any one knows but the devil that advises them how to act. I’ve such a big and bushy head that it’s quite likely they’ll indivor to get two scalps off it, for the bounty is a tempting thing, or old Tom and I wouldn’t be in this scrape. Ay — there they go with their signs ag’in, but if I advise you to land may they eat me as well as roast me. No, no, Deerslayer — do you keep off where you are, and after daylight, on no account come within two hundred yards —”

      This injunction of Hurry’s was stopped by a hand being rudely slapped against his mouth, the certain sign that some one in the party sufficiently understood English to have at length detected the drift of his discourse. Immediately after, the whole group entered the forest, Hutter and Hurry apparently making no resistance to the movement. Just as the sounds of the cracking bushes were ceasing,