Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/154

140 there was little underbrush save patches of fern and brake, and the ground was soft in  most places with its carpet of dead and rotting leaves and took his footfalls in silence. Only once ere he drew nigh the edge of the oak forest did he make a sound. Then, for the moment neglecting caution, he set his  foot on a dead twig and it snapped beneath  his weight with the sudden report of a tiny  pistol. He stopped short and crouched back amongst the black shadows and listened  anxiously. And it was well that he did so, for when an instant had passed there came  to him the sound of a man’s sleepy yawn  from some spot not many paces away to his  left!

The Indian who had left the cave was watching from above, watching, perhaps, lest  the English find the tracks they had left and  approach by the open ground!

David, appalled by the narrow margin of his escape from walking almost straight into  the hands of the enemy, trembled a little as  he sank back on his heels and, scarcely daring to breathe, stared intently in the direction  of the sound. But the Indian was not visible to him, although he searched every foot of  gloomy forest above the cave until his eyes