While the Indian was suffering the sunset clouds to fill him, now
with enthusiasm, and again with dread, Annette and Julie were keeping
their ponies at their fleetest pace to regain sight of the party.
"Do you know, Julie, I feel a presentiment that an opportunity for
the rescue will come to-night. The captors will not dream of pursuit
so far from the frequented grounds and known trails, and they will be
off their guard. See! yonder they camp;" and while she was yet
speaking, a pyramid of scarlet flame, scattering showers of sparks,
shot up from a recess in the bluff lying directly before them.
"Rein in, Julie, we must find a bluff a safe distance off for our
horses. Should they get scent or sight of the ponies in yonder camp,
and whinny, all would be lost."
So swerving to the left, and taking a course at right angles to
their late one, they rode slowly and silently till a bluff rose from
the prairie, a short distance in front, like a hill.
"We shall tether our horses here, Julie; but I believe our stay will
not be a long one." And the pair dismounted, tied their tired beasts,
and swiftly raised the white sides of their tent.
"Ee-e-e-e!" it was Julie who gave the shriek. The thicket was
swarming with soft, noiseless wings, and a bird with burning eyes had
brushed the face of the maiden with its pinion. "What is it, ma
maitresse? It has two bright eyes, and it touched my face. Ee-e-e. O!
There it is again."
"What is the matter, Julie? Do you want to bring Jean and his
Indians here, with this pretty screaming of yours?"
"But it brushed me in the face twice, mademoiselle."
"These are only night hawks, Julie; they gather sometimes like this
in our own poplar-grove."
"O-o that's what it was? Pardonnez-moi. What a simpleton I am, my
mistress. Do you think they heard me?" and her sweet voice was now so
low, that the locust, dozing among the spray of the golden-rod, could
scarcely have heard her tones. The thicket was literally swarming
with these noiseless birds; and wondering they flew round and round
the figures of the intruders, but most of all did they marvel at the
great mound of white that had been raised amongst them. Some of them,
in alarm, rose high above the bluff, wheeling and darting hither and
thither, and the girls could hear their c-h-u-n-g as if some hand,
high up in the air, had smote the bass chord of a violoncello. But
when the flame from the camp fire arose, terror seized every
feathered thing in the bluff, and they all flew, in wild haste, away
from the bewildering light.
Annette was now away wandering through the grove, gathering dry and
fallen limbs for the fire; and as Julie bustled about through the
long prairie grass, preparing the meal, she was startled with a
little cry.