FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   >>  
returned to watch the track. While seated there on a fallen tree, thinking with much satisfaction of some of her recent adventures, she suddenly conceived a little plot, which was more consistent with the character of Skipping Rabbit than herself, and rose at once to put it into execution. With a knife which she carried in her girdle she cut and broke down the underwood at the side of the track, and tramped about so as to make a great many footmarks. Then, between that point and the thicket where her steed was concealed, she walked to and fro several times, cutting and breaking the branches as she went, so as to make a wide trail, and suggest the idea of a hand-to-hand conflict having taken place there. She was enabled to make these arrangements all the more easily that the moon was by that time shining brightly, and revealing objects almost as clearly as if it had been noonday. Returning to the pass, she took off the kerchief with which she usually bound up her luxuriant brown hair, and placed it in the middle of the track, with her knife lying beside it. Having laid this wicked little trap to her satisfaction, she retired to a knoll close at hand, from which she could see her kerchief and knife on the one hand and her horse on the other. Then she concealed herself behind the trunk of a tree. Now it chanced at that very time that four of the young braves of Bounding Bull's camp, who had been sent out to hunt were returning home laden with venison, and they happened to cross the trail of Moonlight at a considerable distance from the pass just mentioned. Few things escape the notice of the red men of the west. On seeing the trail, they flung down their loads, examined the prints of the hoofs, rose up, glared at each other, and then ejaculated "Hough!" "Ho!" "Hi!" "Hee!" respectively. After giving vent to these humorous observations, they fixed the fresh meat in the forks of a tree, and, bending forward, followed up the trail like bloodhounds. Thus it happened that at the very time when Moonlight was preparing her practical joke, or surprise, for Rushing River, these four young braves were looking on with inexpressible astonishment, and preparing something which would indeed be a surprise, but certainly no joke, to herself and to all who might chance to appear upon the scene. With mouths open and eyes stretched to the utmost, these Bounding Bullers--if we may so call them--lay concealed behind a neighb
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   >>  



Top keywords:
concealed
 

Moonlight

 

kerchief

 
preparing
 

surprise

 

satisfaction

 

braves

 

Bounding

 

happened

 

considerable


distance

 
examined
 

venison

 
ejaculated
 
glared
 

prints

 

things

 

returning

 

escape

 

mentioned


notice

 

chance

 

astonishment

 

mouths

 

neighb

 
Bullers
 

stretched

 

utmost

 

inexpressible

 

observations


humorous

 

giving

 
bending
 

practical

 

Rushing

 

forward

 

bloodhounds

 

middle

 

footmarks

 

tramped


underwood
 
thicket
 

cutting

 

breaking

 

branches

 
walked
 

girdle

 
carried
 
recent
 

adventures