University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

The Half-Breed that morning had taken a stand
upon the roadside to which he had been long accustomed.
The route was one frequently trodden by his enemy.
This fact Blonay had ascertained at an early period
in his pursuit, and here, day after day, had he watched
with a degree of patient quietude only to be comprehended
by a reference to the peculiar blood which was
in him. The instincts of the Indian character were his
instincts. Hardily to endure, stubbornly to resist, perseveringly
to prosecute his purpose—that purpose being a
revenge of wrong and indignity,—all these seemed to
have been born within him at his birth, and to have acquired
a strength corresponding with that of his continued
growth and accumulating vigour. Such instincts
are scarcely to be controlled even by education,—the
education which he had received had only made them
more active and tenacious.

The Half-Breed had little hope, on the present occasion,
to meet again with his enemy. The attempt which
he had recently made on the life of Humphries, and
which he thought to have entirely failed, would, he believed,
have so alarmed the trooper as to have impelled
him to seek another route, or, at least, have prompted
him to the precaution of taking companions with him
when he again rode forth. It was with a faint hope,
therefore, that he now resumed his place. On the ensuing
night he was to effect the escape of Mellichampe,
the successful prosecution of which attempt would, he
doubted not, result in raising for him a new enemy in
the person of the tory captain. About the issue of this

adventure he had various misgivings. He questioned
the practicability of success, as he knew nothing of the
design of Mellichampe, and of the despatch which had
been sent by Scipio. He was certain that Mellichampe
would be slain, but he concurred in the supposed preference
which the youth gave to the mode of dying, in
the stroke or shot of sudden combat, rather than by the
degrading cord. He was pledged to serve the maiden,
and to comply with her wishes was the best mode in his
estimation.

He had concealed his pony, and covered himself by
the thick umbrage around him, in his old retreat, when
the sound of approaching horses called for his attention.
With a feeling of gratified surprise he saw his enemy.
But he was accompanied: John Davis rode on one side
of Humphries, and Lance Frampton on the other,—all
well mounted, and carrying their rifles. “How easy to
shoot him now,” thought the Half-Breed,—“I couldn't
miss him now—but it's no use:” and his rifle lay unlifted
across his arm, and he suffered the three to pass
by him in safety. To forbear was mortifying enough.
They rode by within twenty yards, seemingly in the
greatest glee, laughing and talking. A less cool and
wary enemy than Blonay, having a similar pursuit, could
not have forborne. The temptation was a trying one to
him; but, when he looked about in the woods around
him, and saw how easily they might be penetrated by
the survivers, even if he shot Humphries, he felt convinced
that the death of his enemy would be the immediate
signal for his own. His revenge was too much a
matter of calculation—too systematic in all its impulses
—to permit him to do an act so manifestly disparaging
his Indian blood, and his own desire for life, and his
habitual caution. The cover in which he stood, though
complete enough for his concealment while it remained
unsuspected, was otherwise no shelter; and, subduing
his desire, he quietly and breathlessly kept his position,

until his ears no longer distinguished the tramp of their
departing horses.

It was then that the Half-Breed rose from his place
of shelter. Gliding back to the deeper recess where
his pony had been hidden, he was soon mounted, and
prepared to take the track after his enemy.

“He's gone to place the sentries and send out the
scouts. He won't have 'em with him by the time he
gits to the swamp, and I'll take the short track at the
bend and git there before him. Adrat it, that I should
have missed him as I did!”

Thus muttering, he left the woods, and was soon
pacing, with the utmost caution, upon the road which
had been taken by his enemy.

Marking his time duly, and heedful of every object
upon the road, our friend Witherspoon might have been
seen, a little while after, going over the same ground
with no little solemnity. He had carefully noted the
several tracks made by the horse of Humphries, along
with those of his companions, and, step by step, had
kept on their trail until he reached the spot at which,
emerging from the place of his concealment, the waylaying
Blonay had set off also in pursuit. The observant
eye of Witherspoon, accustomed to note every sign
of this description, soon detected the track made by the
hoof of the animal which Blonay bestrode. He alighted
from his horse, and carefully examined it; then, entering
the woods on that side from which the pony had
evidently emerged, he traced out the course of the Half-Breed
by the crushed grass and disordered foliage, until
he found, not only where the pony had been kept,
but the very branch to which he had been tethered.
The branch was broken at the end, and the bridle, having
been passed over it, by its friction, had chafed a
little ring around the bark. From this spot he passed
to that in which Blonay himself had been hidden on the
roadside when Humphries had ridden by. His exclamation,

as he made this discovery, was natural and involuntary—

“Gimini, if Bill had only know'd it, how he could
have wound up the animal! Only to think—here he
squatted, not twenty steps off, and a single leap of a
good nag would ha' put a hoof on each of his shoulders!
But it ain't all a clear track for him yet. Push
is the word; and, if he don't keep wide awake, he'll
larn more in the next two hours than he'll ever understand
in a week after. Come, Button, we'll know this
place next time in case we have to look after the
Indian agen.”

He resumed his course, and with something more of
rapidity, as he now discovered that the game was fairly
afoot. The track was distinctly defined for him; and,
wherever the foot of Humphries' horse had been set
down, there, with unerring certainty, immediately behind,
was that of the pony. Excited by the prospect
of the encounter which he now promised himself, he
began unconsciously to accelerate the movements of his
horse, until he gained rapidly, without knowing it himself,
upon the footsteps of the rider he pursued.

Blonay had not, however, laid aside his habitual
wariness, and the precipitancy of Witherspoon betrayed
his approach to the watchful senses of the Half-Breed.
He had himself gained so much upon Humphries as to
hear the sounds of his horse's tread, and his quick ear
soon detected the corresponding sound from the feet of
Witherspoon's horse in the rear. He paused instantly,
until assured that his senses had not deceived him, and
silently then he slid into the bushes on one side of the
road, availing himself of a deep thicket which spread
along to the right. Nor, having done this, did he pause
in a single spot and simply seek concealment. He
took a backward course for a hundred yards or more,
and awaited there in shelter, watching a single opening
upon the road, which he knew must be darkened by the

figure of the approaching person. Witherspoon rode
on, passed the designated spot, and was recognised by
the outlier. But, as it was not the policy of Blonay to
be discovered now by any, he did not come forth and
remind our friend of their former meeting on the highway.
The partisan kept on his way until he missed the
track of the pony. There was that of Humphries
plainly enough; but that of the pony was no longer perceptible.
He checked his own steed, and rebuked
himself for his want of caution. He saw that he must
now change his game; and, without stopping to make
an examination which might startle Blonay into suspicion,—for
he knew not but that the Half-Breed was
even then looking down upon him from some place of
safe concealment,—he rode on a short distance farther,
and then sank, like Blonay, into the cover of the very
same woods, though on the side opposite to that which
had given shelter to the latter. Here he dismounted,
hid his horse in a recess sufficiently far in the rear to
prevent any sounds which he might utter from reaching
any ear upon the road, and, advancing to a point sufficiently
nigh to command a view of passing objects,
sought a place of concealment and watch for himself.
This he soon found, and, like a practised scout, he patiently
concentrated all his faculties upon the task he
had undertaken, and, with all the energies of his mind,
not less than of his body, prepared for the leap which
he might be required to take, he lay crouching in momentary
expectation of his prey.

Here he waited patiently, for the space of half an
hour, in the hope of seeing the pursuer go by. But he
waited in vain: the road remained undarkened by a
solitary shadow—his ears were unassailed by a solitary
sound. The Half-Breed well knew what he was about.
Familiar with the course usually taken by Humphries,
he did not now care to tread directly upon his footsteps,
particularly as such a progress must have placed him

upon the same road with that taken by the stranger,
whose unlooked-for coming had driven him into shelter.
It was enough that he could reach, a mile above, the
narrow track which, darting aside from the main road,
led obliquely into the swamp. There he knew he
should again come upon the track of Humphries, and
with that hope he was satisfied. Keeping the woods,
therefore, on the side which he had entered, he stole
along among the shadows of the silent pines sufficiently
far to be both unseen and unheard by those upon the
road; and while the scout lay snugly watching for him
in the bush, the subtle Half-Breed had gone ahead of
him, and was now somewhat in advance, though still
moving slowly between him and Humphries. Witherspoon
was soon convinced that this must be the case,
and, throwing aside his sluggishness, he prepared to
resume his progress.

“The skunk will double round us, after all,” he muttered
to himself, “if I don't keep a better look-out.
But he sha'n't. There's only one way. It won't do to
go on sich a trail on the back of a nag that puts down
his foot like an elephant. Shank's mare is the only nag
for this hunt, and you must keep quiet where you are,
Button, till I get back. I can do well enough for
a while without you, and you must be reasonable, and
be quiet, too.”

Thus addressing his horse, he tightened the rope
which fastened him to the tree, and prepared to continue
the pursuit on foot.

“I can walk jist as fast as that 'ere pony can trot, at
any time, and the skunk that straddles him is too cunning
to go fast now. I can outwalk him, I know; and,
if he could hear Button's big foot, it's more than his
ears can do to hear mine.”

Thus reasoning, the scout left his steed, pressed forward
upon the highway, and with rapid strides pushed
for the recovery of lost ground.

Blonay, meanwhile, had gained a sight of the person
he pursued. Humphries had lingered behind with this
very object. As soon as the Half-Breed heard the
sounds of feet above him, and so near the swamp, he
sank into the deepest cover and began to prepare himself.
He first alighted from his pony, which he led as
far into the shelter of the woods as seemed advisable.
His own concealment was more easily effected while on
foot than when mounted, and the proximity of his enemy
rendered every precaution necessary. The sudden
rush of a fleet steed, like that bestrode by Humphries,
would have brought the latter upon him long before
he could conceal himself, if he happened to be mounted
at the time. On foot he pressed forward until he
beheld the three and distinguished their movements.
Humphries was in the rear, Davis and Frampton were
about to enter the swamp, and, indeed, had already
done so. It was then that Blonay urged the pursuit
most rapidly; and, with rifle ready to be lifted to his
shoulder the moment the opportunity should offer
for its use, he leaped cautiously, in a circuitous route,
from cover to cover, and in the greatest silence, in
order to secure a position which might command the
pond, through which he well knew the partisans must go
before entering the swamp. He was the more stimulated
in this object as he thought it not improbable that, as
the companions of Humphries were ahead of him, they
might go so far forward as to throw the entire length of
the pond, and the intervening thicket (which, thrusting
itself up from one side of it, and running far out into its
centre, almost entirely concealed its opposite termination),
between themselves and the enemy he pursued.
If this had been the case, his opportunity to shoot
down Humphries, and make his escape before the other
two could possibly return, would be complete. All
these conjectures and calculations were instantaneous,
and the result of his natural instinct. The image of

his success rose vividly before him as he pressed forward
to secure a fair shot at the figure of which he momently
caught glimpses through the foliage; and, but
for the heedful thought of Humphries,—with whom the
present was the life and thought-absorbing affair,—the
opportunity might have been won by the vindictive pursuer
who desired it. The partisan was sufficiently observant,
however, of all these chances. He knew not
that his enemy was at hand, and, indeed, did not think
it; but he omitted no precaution, and clung close to
his companions. They moved forward together into
the pond; and, when Blonay reached the edge of it,
they had emerged through its waters, and, gaining the
opposite side, were out of his reach and sight, and in
safety for the present.

Blonay was a patient enemy—no less patient than
persevering. He sank back into cover, and prepared to
wait, as he had often done before, for the return of his
victim.

“He goes to place his scouts—he will come back
alone,” were the muttered words of the Half-Breed;
and, unconscious that he himself was an object of as
close a watch as that which he maintained on Humphries,
he coolly sought his place of rest behind a little
clump of cane and a thicket of close brier, which formed
much of the undergrowth among the gigantic cypresses
spreading around him, and formed no unfitting
fringe for the edge of the swamp.

Meanwhile Witherspoon had not been idle or unobservant.
He had pushed forward after Blonay with
precautions similar to those which the latter had practised;
and, with a speed accelerated in accordance with
the due increase of confidence arising from the absence
of his horse, he had contrived to gain a point of observation
which commanded the entrance to the swamp
quite as soon as Blonay, and just when Humphries and
his companions were about to pass into the pond. At

first he saw none but the three companions; but, even
while he gazed upon them from a place of shelter by the
wayside, and at the distance of a few hundred yards,
he became conscious, though yet without seeing the object,
of the approach of some one on the opposite hand.
The three disappeared from his sight, and, as the last
sounds reached his ears of the tread of their horses as
they plashed through the turbid waters of the creek, he
distinctly beheld the person of a man moving hurriedly
along its margin. In the next glance he saw that it
was the Half-Breed.

“I have him—here's at you!” he cried to himself, as
he raised his rifle. But, before he could pull trigger,
his victim had disappeared. Vexed and mortified, he
was compelled to squat down in quiet in order to avoid
being seen; and, hiding himself closely behind a bush,
he waited and watched for a second opportunity. But
this he was not destined to get so readily. While
he looked he saw the whole line of cane-brake, on the
edge of the lagune, slightly agitated and waving at the
tops as if under a sudden gust, but he saw no more of
the person he pursued. In a little while he heard
the feet of the returning horses once more plunging
through the pond; and again did he see the cane-tops
waving suddenly in front of a grove of huge cypresses,
and as suddenly again subsiding into repose. Witherspoon
could see no more of the enemy, and, half bewildered,
he awaited the return of Humphries, to unfold to
him what he knew and how he had been disappointed.

Blonay, meanwhile, though maintaining a solicitous
regard to his own concealment, kept a no less heedful
watch upon the progress of his enemy. He looked out
from his cover upon the return of Humphries; but, as
he continued to be still accompanied by Davis and
Frampton, there was evidently no opportunity for prosecuting
his purpose. He sank back in silence to his
place of shelter among the canes and cypresses.

Witherspoon had again noted the disturbance among
the cane-tops, but he failed to see the intruder. It was
with no small mortification that he unfolded to Humphries,
as he came, the unsuccessful results of his watch.

“He is there, somewhere among the canes; but,
d—n the nigger, you might as well look for a needle in
a haystack as after him in such a place as that.”

“But we will look for him there!” cried Humphries,
dashing forward to the designated region. The rest
followed him in several directions, completely encircling
in their hunt the supposed place of Blonay's concealment.
He looked upon their search in composure and
with scornful indifference; but he remained quiet all the
while. They hunted him with all the passion of hatred,
disappointment, and anxiety. They penetrated through
brake and through brier,—they tore aside the thickly-wedged
masses of cane-twigs and saplings,—traversed
bog and water,—pressed through bushes, and encircled
trees,—searching narrowly every spot and object in the
locality designated by Witherspoon which might conceal
a man; but they laboured in vain. They did not find
the fugitive. Yet his traces everywhere met their eyes.
His footsteps were plainly perceptible on one or two
miry banks; but the whole neighbourhood was half
covered with water, and the traces which he made were
accordingly soon lost. For more than an hour did they
continue the search, until they wandered from the spot
entirely. The quest was hopeless; and, vexed at his
disappointment, Humphries was compelled to give up the
pursuit in the performance of other duties. They had
scarcely left the ground, however, before Blonay came
forth from his place of concealment—the body of a hollow
cypress, divided from the cane-brake by a narrow
creek, in a portion of which it grew.

“Adrat it! they thought to catch a weasel asleep,
did they? I reckon it won't do this time. And now,
I s'pose—”

The words were interrupted, and the soliloquy discontinued.
The fugitive stooped to the earth as if to
listen, then immediately hurried back through the shallow
water, and into the tree where he had previously
hidden himself.