The Scouts of the Valley [8]
"Don't be gone long, Jim," said Henry as he composed himself in a comfortable position. "A circle of a half mile about us will do."
"I'll not be gone more'n an hour," said Long Jim, picking up his rifle confidently, and flitting away among the woods.
" Not likely he'll see anything," said Shif'less Sol, but I'd shorely like to know what White Lightning is about. He must be terrible stirred up by them beatin's he got down on the Ohio, an' they say that Mohawk, Thayendanegea is a whoppin' big chief, too. They'll shorely make a heap of trouble."
"But both of them are far from here just now," said Henry, "and we won't bother about either."
He was lying on some leaves at the foot of a tree with his arm under his head and his blanket over his body. He had a remarkable capacity for dismissing trouble or apprehension, and just then he was enjoying great physical and mental peace. He looked through half closed eyes at his comrades, who also were enjoying repose, and his fancy could reproduce Long Jim in the forest, slipping from tree to tree and bush to bush, and finding no menace.
"Feels good, doesn't it, Henry?" said the shiftless one. " I like a clean, bold country like this. No more plowin' around in swamps for me."
Yes," said Henry sleepily, " it's a good country."
The hour slipped smoothly by, and Paul said:
" Time for Long Jim to be back."
"Jim don't do things by halves," said the shiftless one. "Guess he's beatin' up every squar' inch o' the bushes. He'll be here soon."
A quarter of an hour passed, and Long Jim did not return; a half hour, and no sign of him. Henry cast off the blanket and stood up. The night was not very dark and he could see some distance, but he did not see their comrade.
"I wonder why he's so slow," he said with a faint trace of anxiety.
"He'll be 'long directly," said Tom Ross with confidence.
Another quarter of an hour, and no Long Jim. Henry sent forth the low penetrating cry of the wolf that they used so often as a signal.
"He cannot fail to hear that," he said, "and he'll answer."
No answer came. The four looked at one another in alarm. Long Jim had been gone nearly two hours, and he was long overdue. His failure to reply to the signal indicated either that something ominous had happened or that- he had gone much farther than they meant for him to go.
The others had risen to their feet, also, and they stood a little while in silence.
"What do you think it means?" asked Paul.
"It must be all right," said Shif'less Sol. "Mebbe Jim has lost the camp."
Henry shook his head.
"It isn't that," he said. "Jim is too good a woodsman for such a mistake. I don't want to look on the black side, boys, but I think something has happened to Jim."
"Suppose you an' me go an' look for him," said Shif'less Sol, "while Paul and Tom stay here an' keep house."
"We'd better do it," said Henry. "Come, Sol."
The two, rifles in the hollows of their arms, disappeared in the darkness, while Tom and Paul withdrew into the deepest shadow of the trees and waited.
Henry and the shiftless one pursued an anxious quest, going about the camp in a great circle and then in another yet greater. They did not find Jim, and the dusk was so great that they saw no evidences of his trail. Long Jim had disappeared as completely as if he had left the earth for another planet. When they felt that they must abandon the search for the time, Henry and Shif'less Sol looked at each other in a dismay that the dusk could not hide.
"Mebbe be saw some kind uv a sign, an' has followed it," said the shiftless one hopefully. "If anything looked mysterious an' troublesome, Jim would want to hunt it down."
"I hope so," said Henry, "but we've got to go back to the camp now and report failure. Perhaps he'll show up to-morrow, but I don't like it, Sol, I don't like it!"
"No more do I," said Shif'less Sol. "'Tain't like Jim not to come back, ef he could. Mebbe he'll drop in afore day, anyhow."
They returned to the camp, and two inquiring figures rose up out