"I could run, now, if these Indians would only give me half a chance," said he, to himself. "I may yet show them what I can do, unless they station a sentry at the back of this lodge. Now if I only had a drink of water!"
As Frank said this he went to the door again, and there was the guard, standing in the same position in which he had seen him before, leaning on his spear, and gazing off into vacancy. Frank did not believe that he had moved a muscle during the last two hours.
"I say, old fellow!" he exclaimed, "is there any water about here?" Then, fearing that the savage might not understand him, he made a motion with his hand as though he were drinking from a cup.
The guard did not reply, but beckoned to the prisoner to follow him, and led the way through the village toward the ravine from which the chief and his party had entered the valley. Frank, ever on the alert, exulted at this. He knew that the guard was conducting him to a spring, and he sincerely hoped that it would prove to be outside the village. In that event, one Indian, even though he was armed with a spear, could not prevent him from making at least an attempt at escape. If he could get but two feet the start of the sentry, he believed that he could elude him in the darkness. Unfortunately for the success of these plans, however, the spring was not outside the village. It was but a short distance from the place where he had been confined, and all around it were lodges, beside which stalwart warriors lay upon their blankets, smoking their pipes. The least attempt at escape would have brought them around him like a cloud of mosquitoes. He must wait until some more favorable opportunity.
Frank kneeled down beside the spring, and took a long and refreshing drink, and then quietly followed the guard back to his prison. He looked into the wigwams as he passed along, and now that he had in some measure recovered his usual spirits, he began to be interested in what was going on around him; but he did not see any thing to induce him to give up home and friends, and turn Indian. The idea was a novel one to him, and he could have smiled at it, had it not been for the preparations for battle that were every-where visible in the camp – the horses saddled and waiting, the weapons hung upon the poles of the lodge, where they could be seized at a moment's warning, and the braves in war-paint, ready to move at the word. Frank noticed these things, and thought of his friends at the fort. If the expected reinforcements arrived in time, the savages might make the attack that very night.
When Frank found himself once more inside his prison, he stretched himself on the buffalo robes, and waited impatiently for the Indians to go to sleep. How wearily the hours dragged by, and how Frank alternated between hope and fear, can be imagined better than we can describe it. Sometimes he looked upon his escape as an assured thing. When the Indians were all asleep, it would be a matter of but little difficulty for him to creep out of the lodge, and make his way through the village to the ravine. It was easy enough for him to sit there on the buffalo robes and think about it, but when he imagined himself doing it, and pictured to himself the dangers in his way, his hopes fell again; and then, had it not been for the remembrance of what the outlaw had told him, he would have been tempted to abandon all thoughts of escape. If it would have required all the skill and cunning that Dick and Bob possessed to outwit the savages in a case like this, what could an inexperienced boy of sixteen do?
Frank thought the Indians did not intend to go to sleep at all that night. He heard them moving about until a late hour, and it was midnight before the silence that reigned in the camp told him that if he ever intended to carry out the plans he had determined upon, the time had come to do it. His heart beat fast and furiously as he pulled off his shoes, and moved noiselessly across the lodge toward the corner in which the chief had deposited his blanket and spear. He was very deliberate in his movements, and there was need of all his caution; for the guard stood almost within reach of him, and the slightest noise inside the lodge would have brought him in there immediately. Frank threw the chief's blanket over his shoulders, put on the head-dress, picked up the spear, and crept cautiously across the lodge. He threw himself upon his hands and knees, and after listening a moment to assure himself that the guard had not been alarmed, he lifted up the skins which formed the wall of the lodge, and looked out. The camp was as silent as though it had been deserted. On every hand he could see the smoldering embers of the fires by which the savages had cooked their suppers, but not a living being was in sight. Drawing in a long breath he crawled slowly out of the lodge, and after lingering a moment to arrange the blanket about his shoulders, he grasped the spear firmly in his hand, and stole away into the darkness, looking back now and then to make sure that he was keeping the lodge between him and the guard. An intervening row of wigwams finally shut his prison from his sight, and Frank began to congratulate himself on having accomplished the most difficult part of his undertaking.
"When the chiefs reinforcements arrive, and he makes the attack on the fort, and finds the trappers and soldiers ready to receive him, he will wish he had taken a little more pains to watch me," thought Frank, as, with a step that would not have awakened a cricket, he made his way through the village toward the ravine. "If Dick and Bob had been his prisoners he would, no doubt, have kept them bound hand and foot; but I'm a boy, and he thought he had nothing to fear from me. I'll teach him something."
The tall figure of an Indian glided suddenly across the path in front of him, and interrupted his soliloquy. Frank's first impulse was to throw down the spear and blanket, and take to his heels; but remembering in time that he was personating an Indian, and that every thing depended upon his getting out of the village before the guard at the chief's wigwam discovered his flight, he straightened up and boldly approached the Indian, who merely turned his head and looked at Frank, and then disappeared among the lodges. That was another danger passed; and commending the forethought that had induced him to use the chief's clothing as a disguise, he kept on with increased speed toward the mountains, which, to his impatient eye, seemed as far off as when he left his prison. But he was gradually nearing them all the while, and when the last lodge had been left behind, and was concealed from his view by the thick shrubbery and trees that lined the banks of the ravine, his fear and trembling vanished, and it was all he could do to refrain from giving vent to his jubilant feelings. He sat down on the ground to put on his shoes, which he had been thoughtful enough to bring with him, then took the blanket under his arm, and never stopping to think that there might be Indians in front of him as well as behind, he broke into a run and flew down the ravine like the wind.
"I haven't done much to brag of, seeing that I was not very closely watched," thought he, "but still I think I have played those savages a pretty sharp trick. Now, if I only had Dick's speed and experience!"
If Frank had possessed the trapper's experience, he would have been much more cautious in his movements, and might, perhaps, have succeeded in reaching the valley in safety. He would have curbed his eagerness which proved fatal to his hopes. There was a party of Indians coming up the ravine with a prisoner; and their quick ears caught the sound of Frank's footsteps long before he came in sight. The prisoner knew who it was approaching at that reckless gate, and so did the Indians, who, at a sign from their leader, quickly concealed themselves beside the path; and when Frank was on the point of passing their ambush, a figure which seemed to rise out of the ground clasped him in its strong arms, and he was a prisoner again almost before he knew it.
The first Indian who confronted him, as he was lifted to his feet, was the chief, who astonished his prisoner by the reception he gave him. He seemed somewhat surprised to see him there, but he did not appear to be angry. He looked at the blanket and spear, then at Frank, and giving him a hearty slap on the back said, approvingly:
"Good boy! Make fine Injun, some day!"
Frank, although his face was very pale, and he was trembling in every limb, was not as badly frightened now as when he first found himself in the power of the savages. For himself he was not at all concerned, for he did not stand in any fear of bodily harm; but there were his friends in the valley, whom he was so anxious to warn of their danger! It was of them he thought, and not of himself.
"I say, youngster," said a cheery, familiar voice, close at his elbow, "you've got a few things to larn yet, haint you? When a feller is in an Injun country he can't go tearin' through the woods as you did a minute ago. I can't shake hands with you, 'cause I am tied hard and fast."
"Dick Lewis!" cried Frank, in alarm. He was too astonished to speak again immediately. The redoubtable