CHAPTER VII.JOURNEYING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
Hans Bungslager certainly had a remarkable appreciation of a joke, and although something like anger rose in Crockett's breast at the thought of the stupid mistake that had been made, he could only grin and wait in silence until his outburst of merriment was ended, when he inquired:
"Are you sartin that we ain't right after all?"
"Dish ish de path dat goes round, and come back of my house shust in front of it, and if we keeps on, te cabin will run ag'inst us."
"Then we may as well turn back."
Crockett guided his horse carefully around the other so as still to hold the lead, and after considerable trouble, Hans succeeded in imitating him, and the return was begun.
It is never a very pleasant thing to find you have taken the wrong road, and Colonel Crockett felt somewhat ruffled that his companion should have misled him; but, after all, he did not see as any thing was lost thereby.
He felt very grave doubts in his own mind of the wisdom of this attempt to reach the settlement, when it was as good as certain that the Comanches were ahead of him. At any rate, there was no wisdom in seeking to do so, supported only by Hans Bungslager.
Sebastian was as keen and skillful as he was brave. He was intimately acquainted with every crook and turn of the forest-paths, he had fought Comanches and Mexicans, and some reliance could be placed upon him in an emergency like this.
Pretty Katrina was far more valuable in the hour of danger than was her thick-headed uncle; and by turning back, there was the probability of joining them the sooner, provided they had not already come up and passed the point where the two paths joined.
This seemed so probable as to cause Crockett considerable misgiving, and he turned about to make a proposition to the Dutchman.
"You're so heavily-loaded, Hans, that it won't be safe for your hoss to undertake to git up a trot, if he was able, which I don't believe he is. So I'll gallop on ahead to meet the folks, while you take your time. Are you agreeable?"
"Yaw."
Without waiting for any thing further, Crockett struck his mustang into a gallop, his hoofs sounding upon the earth with a dangerous loudness, when there was such necessity for silence in all their movements.
A few minutes only were necessary to bring him back to the main path, where he looked keenly about in the gloom for some sign of his young friends; but none was to be seen, and he heard only the sigh of the winds and the soft flow of the creek.
Had they already passed?
The question was so important that Crockett thought himself justified in taking rather imprudent means to answer; so he galloped some distance down the path, and then reining up, shouted:
"Hilloa!"
He repeated the call several times, and his voice echoed among the trees with a startling force, but no welcome response came back in the shape of a signal from Sebastian. Then he dismounted from his horse, and advancing to where the moonlight shone upon the ground, carefully scrutinized it as an Indian does when looking for the signs of the passing of a foe.
But he was unable to detect any thing at all, and so he retraced his steps to the "junction," convinced that the lovers were still between him and the cabin.
"Whoa! whoa! Doonderation! Why you don't shtop?"
As these excited words reached the ears of the hunter he became sensible of a furious tearing forward of some animal, and while he was looking up the path to see what it meant, the horse of Hans Bungslager came forward on a trot, that threatened to displace every thing upon her back, and jolting the rider like so much jelly.
"Whoa! shtop him!" he called out, seeing Crockett.
"What's the matter?" asked the latter, with a laugh, as he turned his horse so as to head him off.
"He got scared at a pig bear back in te woods, and I can't shtop him."
The animal was certainly frightened at something, and instead of stopping before the obstruction placed in his path, he shied sharply to the right. Hans was unprepared for this movement, and he rolled over to the other side, bringing himself to the ground, with the feather-bed upon top of him. Leaving him to disengage himself as best he could, Crockett made a dash for the horse just in time to catch his bridle.
"Doonder blitzen!" muttered Hans, as he staggered to his feet, "what made you shtop de hoss sochook up?"
"That's the only way I see'd to do it. Are you hurt any?"
"I dinks I am," replied the Dutchman, as he began feeling of different parts of his person, "I prokes my pipe, and I bu'sted two buttons off my coat behind, and I feels pad all over of myself."
"If you will take my advice you'll strip off all there is on this hoss."
"Vot I does shmit it?"
"Leave it here till you kin come back and get it; if you keep it on the horse, and try to get it into the settlement, you'll lose it and your scalp, too."
"Can't lose my skelp, 'cause I hain't got none to lose," replied Hans, lifting his hat and showing his pate, white and shining in the moonlight.
Crockett urged his proposition, and his comrade seemed quite struck with it. He debated and hesitated awhile, but finally consented, and, as the horse had become soothed and quieted by this time, he stood still, while the different articles were taken from his back.
They were carefully deposited under a large tree, standing back some distance from the path, and then Hans remounted his animal and took the reins in his hand.
By this time, Crockett began to feel some apprehension about the lovers, who ought to have been on the spot before this.
He made numerous inquiries of Hans, but learned very little. The stolid Dutchman seemed certain that it was all well with both of them, and that there was no cause for anxiety about either.
"Sebastian—he so shmart de Injins can't cotch him."
"But Katrina?"
"She so purty dat nobody never didn't hurt her, and so nobody won't never say nottin' to her—so she's all right."
"She's never had a pack of red-skins chasing her," replied Crockett, who was any thing but satisfied with the situation of things.
"Dat is why dey won't do it, den, no more."
"But, why are they hanging back so?"
"Dey ain't hangin' pack—dey hang forward. I dinks Katrina ish lookin' fur de cow, Sebastian ish lookin' fur Katrina, and te cow ish lookin' fur me, and we ish lookin' fur all dem, and so we all keeps lookin'—yaw! yaw!"
"It seems to me we may as well wait here till they come—there ain't any other way they can get to the settlement is there?"
"Yaw."
"How?"
"Dey kin go down into Mexico, and den come round frough de Mulf of Gexico, and come dat way—but den it ish furder dan dis way isn't?"
"Is there any other straight path?"
"Dey kin go on t'oder sight de creek."
"I didn't know there was another path. Just as like as not they have taken that and are several miles ahead."
"I don't dinks so."
"Why not?"
"Cause we hain't heard de cow-bell—dat go jingle-jingle."
"Let's go ahead, for I don't see any use in waiting here."
The hunter felt some impatience at the belief that he had dallied away so much time, when it was more than probable that the parties for whom he was waiting had long since passed by on the other side.
Accordingly he started his horse along the path again, Hans Bungslager following close in the rear.
"So his animile was skeared by a b'ar," mused the Tennesseean, as he rode along and recalled the fright of the horse ridden by his friend. "I wonder if he was as big a critter as I shot yesterday? If he was I'd like to get a shot at him."
He held up his rifle in front of him, as he passed through a small patch of moonlight, to make sure that the priming was in good condition.
"She's allers ready," he mused, as he still held it. "I don't like Injins, and I do like b'ars, and I'd a blamed sight rather shoot one of the four-footed than one of the two-legged critters, and if one should come 'long just now—"
"Hilloa!" called Hans again, in an unusually cautious voice.
"Well, what now?" asked Crockett, turning his head; "don't speak too loud."
"My hoss is skeart ag'in."
"What by?"
"I dinks dat bear ish follerin' me," replied Hans, looking affrightedly over his shoulder.
"Where is he?" was the excited demand of Crockett, who thought no more of lovers or Indians. "Do you see him?"
"No, but I hears him valk, and the hoss he don't like it; I dinks he pig bear or else he be Injin dat is trying to shteal me."
"I guess it's more likely to be a red-skin than any thing else," replied the Tennesseean, instantly becoming very circumspect in his movements, "and whichever it is, I've got to use my gun on 'em!"