Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/161



his way back to where the hanging branches of a small hemlock promised to  screen him from the trail, David sank to the  ground with a shivering sigh of relief. While it might be that a long and weary vigil  awaited him, yet to be able to stretch his  aching body and relax his taut muscles was  a blissful thing. When his breathing had quieted, the sounds of the night, unheard or  unnoted while he journeyed, came to him  eerily: the faint stirrings of small animals,  the scratching noise of a raccoon or hedgehog clawing his way up a tree-trunk, a brief  flurry in the brush a little way off and the  agonized squeal of some tiny victim surprised  by the slayer, and, suddenly, shudderingly  near, the long-drawn howl of a wolf.

The latter sound brought to the boy a realization of his unarmed condition. Not even a knife did he have. He sought within his reach for some branch that might serve for  a club, but found nothing. After all, it mattered little, for it was not wolves but Indians