Here dreaming, though wide-awake, of the exquisite tortures to which they were to put him at break of day, those confiding savages were found by the treacherous Hook. Everything being thus mapped out with almost diabolical cunning, the main body of the redskins folded their blankets around them, and in the phlegmatic manner that is to them, the pearl of manhood squatted above the children's home, awaiting the cold moment when they should deal pale death. They found only one hillock with a stream at its base, so that Hook had no choice here he must establish himself and wait for just before the dawn. Every foot of ground between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the home under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their mocassins with the heels in front. With that alertness of the senses which is at once the marvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were on the island from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick and in an incredibly short space of time the coyote cries began. They left nothing undone that was consistent with the reputation of their tribe. The Piccaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his honour, and their whole action of the night stands out in marked contrast to his. That this was the usual procedure was so well known to Hook that in disregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance. So the chill hours wear on, and the long suspense is horribly trying to the paleface who has to live through it for the first time but to the trained hand those ghastly calls and still ghastlier silences are but an intimation of how the night is marching. The cry is answered by other braves and some of them do it even better than the coyotes, who are not very good at it.
Not a sound is to be heard, save when they give vent to a wonderful imitation of the lonely call of the coyote. The brushwood closes behind them, as silently as sand into which a mole has dived. Through the long black night the savage scouts wriggle, snake-like, among the grass without stirring a blade. There they await the onslaught, the inexperienced ones clutching their revolvers and treading on twigs, but the old hands sleeping tranquilly until just before the dawn. The white men have in the meantime made a rude stockade on the summit of yonder undulating ground, at the foot of which a stream runs, for it is destruction to be too far from water. The pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof that the unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins fairly is beyond the wit of the white man.īy all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its lowest ebb. You should visit Browse Happy and update your internet browser today!
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