Johnny Longbow

by Roy J. Snell

  CHAPTER XXIV LEFT BEHIND

  That the hunchback was a great sleeper Johnny was soon enough to know.After their long journey he slept far into the day. Even after he awokehe appeared to be in a dull stupor, produced, Johnny supposed, by eatinggreat quantities of bear meat.

  Grateful as he was for the rest, the boy found himself growing restless.Longing to know more about his strange surroundings and especially eagerto discover whether or not he was in a region visited at times by whitemen, he slipped out of the cabin, then went slipping and sliding down thesteep hill.

  He discovered little enough. In the scrub forest he found no mark of thewhite man's axe. Had he chanced to go down the other slope he would haveseen plenty, as you well know. For two days, the while preparing hisraft, the aged recluse had camped at the far end of that slope.

  After a two-hour ramble, Johnny returned to the cabin. In one pocket wasa double handful of last year's blueberries. In one hand he carried twogrouse which had fallen before his bow.

  "These," he told himself, "will make a more appetizing meal than greasybear meat."

  The hunchback sat just as he had left him, doubled up in the corner,asleep or at least dozing.

  "He hibernates like a bear," the boy told himself in disgust.

  "I could leave him," he thought later as he plucked the feathers from histwo birds. "Strike right away into the wilderness, be gone so far and sofast that he'd never find me."

  There was a thought for you. But did he want to leave? Crude andrepulsive as the creature was, he had beyond doubt saved his life. Then,too, he knew the ways of the country, was used to procuring food in it.With no companion one might easily meet up with starvation on the trail.

  "Anyway," he concluded, "if he keeps this up, at least I will get out andsee more of the country. May find a way out. To-morrow I will go towardthe river."

  Had he but known it, at that very moment Gordon Duncan was lighting hiscampfire at the foot of the hill. He did not know it. Since the scrubforest was dense here, no gleam of firelight, no whiff of smoke announcedto him the presence of his friends. So once more, in the midst of richfurs he fell asleep.

  Before his strange host was up and about the boy crept from the cabin togo tramping away through the silent forest. The rise on which the cabinstood was more a ridge than it was a hill. It ran for miles along theriver.

  The slope on the river side was steep and rocky. In places there weresheer precipices of forty or fifty feet. To avoid a dangerous fall, hecontinued along the crest of the ridge.

  Having caught a gleam of water far below, he realized that he wasfollowing down the stream. At last, wearying of continual attempts tofind a way down, hoping to discover a pass, he climbed a steep rockypinnacle that gave him an unobstructed view of the river.

  There he saw that which brought an exclamation to his lips and set hisheart beating wildly. A boat had just pushed off from the bank and wasswinging out into mid-channel. Lacking efficient paddles, the men at prowand stern were managing the craft with poles. A curious sort of boat itwas, crudely built and hard to navigate; yet these Indians managed itwell.

  "Indians," Johnny thought. "But the two in the center of the boat. One'sa girl. The other's too tall. He--"

  Of a sudden, like a revelation it came to him. The man was Gordon Duncan,the girl Faye.

  With a sudden headlong rush, he was off the rocky tower and away down thehill. Little matter now that the way was steep and rocky. This was arace, a hurdle race for a precious prize.

  "If only they stall the boat. If only they turn back," he panted as,gripping the bough of a spruce tree, he fairly hurled himself to the nexttree. Down, down, down. Now a rocky ledge, now a glistening bank of snow,now a clump of trees, over, under, through he went until at last, ragged,torn, bleeding, he reached level land and in time the river's brink.

  "Too late," he groaned as his eyes swept the river. Not a moving thingwas to be seen on its surface.

  "It--it--why, it's as if I dreamed that I saw them," he said aloud.

  As if to convince himself that he had not been dreaming, he followedalong the bank to the spot where the crude bearskin boat had pushed off.There he found unmistakable signs; footprints told who had been there butan hour before.

  "Left behind!" He buried his face in his hands.

  At that instant a sound from behind him caused him to start. Turningquickly about, he found himself staring into the beady eyes of thehunchback.