Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/48

 selves in the forest; and they would attempt no extended pursuit because they were in the country of their enemies. So Almayne reflected as he ran, glancing often over his shoulder, searching for shadowy brown figures leaping after him amid the shadowy trees. Once for an instant he thought he saw them, but the swift-moving forms which he glimpsed were a troop of deer, crossing his trail from the left, running fast, their white tails erect, as though something had frightened them. Almayne bore to the right and ran on without pause. A quarter of a mile more and he saw ahead of him down the wooded slope the dark green of the canes.

For an hour he lay in the canebrake, brooding over the blow that had fallen. Little Tlutlu was lost to him. The pack ponies were lost. Their rich cargo of beaver pelts, for which he had traveled to the country of the Chicasaws beyond the Blue Mountains, would be carried to the lodges of the Iroquois and bartered finally to the traders of Canada or New York. Presently he smiled a wry smile.

"Old Julah was right," he said to himself. "The evil came quickly."

When he judged it safe to move, he rose and for a mile followed a deer path winding through the canebrake parallel with the creek. Then he turned to the left along another deer path and, emerging from the canes, set off westward through the forest.