CHAPTER XXV.THE TELLTALE CROW.
For the most part, however, the scouts saved their breath and spoke but little. They were straining every effort to reach Bendigo Lake, the only body of water of sufficient size to offer protection from the conflagration. Every creek and pond hole in the neighborhood, which either of them knew about, was low now, and none were big enough to promise safety. In Bendigo Lake was a long, narrow island, wooded to be sure; but the lake was so wide that the scouts believed the flames would not leap from the shore to the island.
“At any rate, it’s our best play, Buffler. No doubt of that,” observed Texas Jack.
“Right you are, Texas,” panted the other. “Pick up your feet!”
“That fire’s certainly racing to overtake us.”
“Ha! What’s that?” muttered Cody, suddenly turning to look up a small slope which was more heavily wooded than the lowland through which they were passing.
There had been a movement in the brush. Thewind did not affect the leaves and branches down here; it was only the tree tops that swayed and sang in the breeze.
“A deer, eh?” panted Jack.
“There!”
Uttering the yell, Buffalo Bill seized his friend by the neck and flung him suddenly forward upon his face. He fell himself as well, and at the very instant there was a flash in the bushes on the side-hill, an explosion sounded, and the zip-zip of the bullet cut the air over their heads.
Both scouts rolled aside, found covert, and sprang into position, revolvers in hand. Cody emptied one pistol as rapidly as possible into the brush-clump from which the treacherous shot had been fired.
“No use, Bill! There he goes!” yelled Texas Jack.
Off at one side they saw a huge figure pass rapidly out of sight. It looked like a bear running on its hind legs—were such a thing possible.
“Of all the bloody-minded scoundrels!” said Texas Jack, as the two scouts set forth again, in the same direction as that taken by the person who had fired at them—which was likewise toward the lake, “that fellow takes the bun.”
“Who was he? The smoke was in my eyes, and I couldn’t tell whether he was white or red.”
“He was white, all right—or, so I have always heard,” declared Texas Jack.
“By thunder! you don’t mean to say you know the scoundrel?”
“Not personally acquainted with him—no,” laughed Jack.
“What then?”
“I’ve heard tell of him a good deal the past dozen years.”
“Who is he?”
“The Mad Hunter.”
“Get out!”
“That’s who it was, Buffler.”
“Why should the fool fire at us?”
“He’d just as soon shoot a white man as a red.”
“He’s a devil.”
“That he is.”
“Why, I believe I saved his life the other day when I was out with Dick Danforth.”
“What for?”
Cody told him of how the young lieutenant had come near to shooting a gigantic man for a caribou, and how the being had run away yelling into the forest.
“That’s him. Crazy as they make them.”
“He must be crazy if he would stop to shoot men down when such a fire as that yonder is on his track as well as theirs.”
“I reckon an insane person don’t act logically.”
“He’s worse than the dumb beasts,” said Cody. “Look at that rabbit running almost between your legs, Jack. Aw! don’t step on him!”
“I ain’t—dern his hide!” exclaimed Texas Jack, making a flying leap over the bunny.
“He’s scared stiff. Some of the deer have run close enough to us to be touched. Even a bear will behave when there’s a forest fire. But this crazy bedlam is ready to shoot inoffensive men when death of the most awful kind is threatening him.”
“That’s why he’s crazy, I reckon,” said Texas Jack. “Come on, Buffler; this way.”
The light of the fire now made the forest about them as light almost as day, but the radiance flickered, and the shadows danced in a blinding fashion. The scouts could not see as clearly as usual. Within a mile of the spot where they had been attacked by the Mad Hunter a second shot was fired at them—this time from directly ahead. Fortunately, the bullet went wild.
“He’s got a single-shot, old-fashioned rifle,” declared Texas Jack.
“That’s what is saving our lives,” returned his comrade.
“He’s ahead of us—between us and the lake.”
“We’ve got to try to capture him, then,” declared Cody firmly. “No use mincing matters. The fire is bad enough, but he is more dangerous.”
“Reckon you’re right, Buffler,” grunted Texas Jack.
The scouts separated, running several rods apart, so that the Mad Hunter might not be able to get them both in a line. And, if that were possible, they increased their pace. They heard the man crashing through the brush ahead, but they did not obtain another glimpse of him. And so phenomenal was his speed that soon he was out of ear-shot. Besides, the roaring of the flames and the crashing of falling trees interfered with their tracking of the madman by his footsteps.
Their enemy ran as no human being ever ran before, for he got far enough ahead to load his old-fashioned gun and again await their coming. Thistime he took a shot at Texas Jack and sent that worthy’s hat spinning into the air.
“Confound his hide!” roared the scout. “Pepper him, Bill!”
But with a scream of rage the madman was off through the illuminated forest once more, and Cody’s shots did not overtake him. Besides, the light was so uncertain that the scout did not waste but two balls in the attempt to bring down the foe.
“He’ll git one of us yet,” cried Texas Jack.
“We’ll keep as close to him as possible. He mustn’t have a chance to reload!”
But it was like chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. The madman was off like the wind, shrieking his defiance. They could not keep him in sight, although the fire now was illuminating the forest far ahead of them.
The roaring of the flames drowned the scouts’ shouts to each other, too; and the heat puffed upon their backs as though somebody had suddenly swung open the door of an enormous furnace.
Suddenly Cody saw his friend throw up his hand, and knew that he shouted rather than heard the sound of his voice. Jack turned at a sharp angle, too, and Buffalo Bill followed suit. In a moment a glint of steel-blue water ahead invigorated Cody as well as his comrade. Lake Bendigo was at hand!
In fifteen minutes they were on the shore. The water was a blessed relief to their eyes when they plunged their faces into it. In the rear the fire roared mightily, and the smoke now began to drift down upon them with smothering thickness.
“We’d better take off our clothes and swim for the island, heh?” queried Jack.
“Yes. There’s a bunch of driftwood that will make some kind of a raft. We’ll use it to transport our clothing and guns.”
They stripped swiftly and were about to step into the water and push off the rude raft piled with their possessions when:
Ping!
The bullet buried itself in a tree trunk right beside Buffalo Bill’s head.
“Holy Christmas!” exclaimed Texas Jack.
“That devil has got ahead of us,” declared Cody. “That bullet came from the island.”
“Why, he’s got us between two fires!” exclaimed Texas, bound to joke under any and all circumstances.
For an instant the scouts were nonplused. They had involuntarily taken trees, but the heat from the rear was already unpleasant to their bare bodies.
“We can’t stay here,” muttered Cody. “I shall go around the lake a ways, Texas, and try to swim over without being seen. You show yourself here. Better still, push off the raft and keep behind it and submerged as much as possible. Make for the island, but go slowly.”
“You bet I’ll make for the island. I think I’d rather take cold lead than hot flames. Ouch!”
“Meanwhile I’ll try to sneak over and get to the madman’s rear.”
“Bare-handed?”
“How else, man?” cried Cody. “I must be prepared to swim under water a part of the way. It must be cunning to match his cunning or we are lost, Jack!”
Texas Jack realized that this was so, and he made no further objection. Cody glided away through theshadowy forest, and Jack pushed off the raft and dodged another bullet. He was soon floundering in the cold water, pushing the raft before him, but by no means enamored of his position. The fire was behind and would devour him shortly if he returned to the shore. Every few moments a bullet sped from the madman’s hiding-place on the island and “plunked” into the raft, or into the water close beside the swimmer.
Meanwhile Cody scurried along the shore, but suddenly found himself cut off by a tongue of the fire that had got ahead of the main conflagration and was already burning fiercely at the very verge of the lake. Traveling through the brush in his bare skin was not pleasant at best, so the scout tried sneaking into the water behind the little point of land which chanced to hide the island.
Cold as the water was, it was a blessed relief from the heat and smoke of the forest. As he struck out from the shore, blazing embers showered about him, hissing and smoking as they struck the water. The smoke rolled down upon the lake and now and then completely blinded him, and must certainly have hidden his head from the observation of anybody on the island. Cody was delighted with the apparent success of his scheme, and struck out strongly for the little patch of wooded soil in which he hoped, with Texas Jack, to find safety. That it was held in possession by a madman did not matter. It was the single refuge offered the scouts, and if the madman would not share it peacefully, he must be put out of the way.
These were Cody’s thoughts as he swam across the intervening space. He finally came to the slopingshore, so that he could stand upright and wade in with his head and shoulders out of water. He had gone so far around the island that he believed that the madman, watching Texas Jack and his raft, would not see his own approach.
And he did almost reach the shore unmolested. Suddenly, out of a dark hemlock at the extreme point of the island, there sprang a big crow, which, with raucous cry, flew over the scout and circled about him threateningly. The crow’s nest was evidently in that tree, and the coming of this strange maritime animal, who walked erect like a man, but wore no clothes, troubled the crow’s mind.
The bird squawked like a hen with its head caught between two fence-palings. Cody made a dash for the shore, hoping to get under cover and so cease to disturb the telltale crow.
But as he was about to step out on dry land a gigantic figure suddenly sprang through the brush at the water’s edge and appeared over him in a most threatening attitude. Above his head the man held a great rock, which he poised to fling upon the unarmed scout.