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Before an order could be given the crack of rifles came from the woods, and a few of the hunters were seen bursting from the forest, one by one, and coming at a double-quick up the slope of the glacis. Hamish and O'Flynn were the last. They had been together a little distant from the others. Now and again they had heard the report of firearms, multiplied into something like a volley.
This hunting means considerable labour, as the nests are often in the walls, parts of which have to be pulled down and built up again. The mode of working is this. A dog is sent along the wall. If it scents a rat the hunters gather round and remove the stones from around the spot, then block up with turf all holes in the broken wall.
So the ten Winnebagos, under the lead of the famous chieftain Black Bear, moved along the trail in the direction of the camp of the Hunters of the Ozark, and the expressions and words that had been overheard by the watchful Shawanoe, left no doubt that by way of revenge they meant to slay the three trappers who had located there for the winter. The Winnebagos came from the north-east.
They had already surrounded them, the circle being quite a number of miles in diameter, and were now simply drawing in their lines. This, as a matter of course, made a collision inevitable, unless the hunters could manage to steal between these redskins, and, by striking the open country beyond, place the entire company in their rear. Such a plan as this was scarcely possible of accomplishment.
Others of the men were busied erecting scaffolds, and other contrivances, for jerking or drying meat; others were lighting great fires for the same purpose; soon the hunters began to make their appearance, bringing in the choicest morsels of buffalo meat; these were placed upon the scaffolds, and the whole camp presented a scene of singular hurry and activity.
The three hunters joined company, and likewise dismounted from their horses. At last one mounted again and rode over the hill out of sight. My companion said, "We must now get on our horses: load your pistol;" and he looked to his own sword. I asked, "Are they Indians?" "Quien sabe? It then struck me, that the one man had gone over the hill to fetch the rest of his tribe.
"He's a fine haul," he added, looking the muskrat over. "And the beavers are fine, too," added Shep. "Boys, I think we can count ourselves lucky and no mistake." "Let us set the traps again," said Whopper, who was excited over the haul. This was done, and the boy hunters returned to their camp well pleased at what they had caught. "I wish we'd get something in the bear trap," said Giant.
We did no more washing that day. About five o'clock our hunters came in with the best meat of a blacktail deer. Bagsby listened attentively to our account of the interview. Then he took a hindquarter of the newly killed buck and departed for the Indians' camp, where he stayed for an hour. "I don't think they are out for meanness," he announced when he returned.
The chief thing was to get a run to start a rare red fox, if luck was good, because he was supposed to run straight by nature and not to move in circles after the inconsiderate manner of the commoner grey sort. But Providence, being inattentive to the needs of hunters in the neighbourhood of Dinwiddie, had decreed that the red fox should live there mainly in the vivid annals of old sportsmen.
Sponge, on the other hand, had no reason to complain of the colours in which his stud-groom painted him. Instead of being the shirtless strapper of a couple of vicious hack hunters. Leather made himself out to be the general superintendent of the opulent owner of a large stud.
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