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Updated: May 3, 2025
There is the thrashing of mighty antlers among the underbrush, the pounding of heavy hoofs upon the earth; and straight down the great bull rushes like a tempest, nearer, nearer, till he bursts with tremendous crash through the last fringe of alders out onto the grassy point. And then the heavy boom of a rifle rolling across the startled lake.
"But if he took to the water we'll lose it, just as we lost Baxter's trail yesterday." The trail crossed the main road and came out at the lake where there was a slight bluff covered with a heavy growth of underbrush. To their right was an old building, which in years gone by had been a dwelling.
In defiance of his orders they left the fort, and creeping through the underbrush, wantonly took deliberate aim, discharged a volley of bullets upon the inebriated savages, who were harming nobody but themselves. One was killed outright. Others were severely wounded. The soldiers, having performed this insane act, retreated, with the utmost speed to the fort.
The days were oppressively hot, as the men in blue tramped through the forest aisles of the vast Virginia jungle a maze of trees, underbrush and dense foliage. A pall of ominous silence hung over this labyrinth of desolation, broken only by the chirp of bluebird or the distant call of the yellowhammer.
But stately as were those fern forests, where plants which creep low at our feet to-day, or are known to us chiefly as underbrush, or as rushes and grasses in swampy grounds, grew to the height of lofty trees, yet the vegetation was of an inferior kind. There has been a gradation in time for the vegetable as well as the animal world.
The green woods are free from underbrush, and a cool undercurrent of air plays amid the leafy shades, which, if not ambrosial, are none the less grateful, as it registers over 100° in the sun; without, the silvery sheen of the river glimmers through the interspaces; the dulcet notes of church-bells come floating on the breeze from over the river, seeming to proclaim, with their melodious tongues, peace and good-will to all.
More than one flock of large and small waterfowl flew past beneath the silvery cloudlets flecking the lofty azure vault of heaven; here and there a pelican or a pair of wild ducks plunged, with short calls which ceased abruptly, into the lush green thicket, but their cackling and quacking belonged to the voices of Nature, and, when heard, soon died away in the heights of the tipper air, or in the darkness of the underbrush that received the birds.
The ground was unusually dry for an African forest and the underbrush, while heavily foliaged, was not nearly so rank and impenetrable as that which she had been accustomed to find in similar woods. It was as though the trees and the bushes grew in a waterless country, nor was there the musty odor of decaying vegetation or the myriads of tiny insects such as are bred in damp places.
They left the overhanging cliff which had guarded them so well in more ways than one, and entered the forest, veering off to the left, and picking their way carefully through the underbrush. Ned suddenly sprang aside, shuddering. A Mexican, slain in the battle, lay upon his side. But Obed was practical. "I know it's unpleasant to touch him," he said, "but he may have what we need.
It took Flick but a second to follow him, and the next moment Pearl and her father heard him call. "Come out. I got you covered, but I'll thank you first for your gun." Gallito also started forward now, but before he had taken more than a step or two Hugh emerged first from the underbrush, followed by Hanson and then by Flick.
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