The Hunters of the Ozark | Page 3

last into the Gulf of Mexico. The course of this stream was so winding that it extended on two sides of the town and ran in a westerly direction, exactly the opposite of that it finally had to take in order to reach its outlet.
As a rule, it was about twenty feet wide with a depth of from one or two to six feet. It was subject to tremendous overflows which sometimes tripled its volume and increased its width to that of a river. At such times a series of enormous rocks through which the creek at "low tide" lazily wound its way, lashed the turbid current into a fury somewhat like that seen in the "whirlpool" below Niagara. Could you have stood on the shore and looked at the furiously struggling waters, you would have been sure that even if a man were headed up in a barrel, he could not have lived to pass through the hundred yards of rapids, though there was reason to believe that more than one Indian had shot them in his canoe.
Terry Clark told his friend that his search of the night before and of the morning following had been to the north and west of the settlement, so that it was hardly worth while to continue the hunt in that direction. The cows sometimes stood in the water, where so much switching of their tails was not needed to keep away the flies, and, though there was quite a growth of succulent grass on the clearing, the animals often crossed the creek and browsed through the woods and undergrowth on the other side.
The boys were inclined to think that the brindle had taken that course during the afternoon and had actually gone astray,--something which a quadruped is less likely to do than a biped, though the former will sometimes make the blunder. There was nothing unreasonable in the theory that the bell had fallen from her neck and that the owner therefore might be not far away.
At intervals, Terry shouted "Bos! bos! bos!" the Latin call which the cow sometimes recognized, though she generally paid no attention to it. It was the same now, possibly due to the fact that she did not hear the call.
Reaching the edge of the stream, the boys began walking along the bank toward the left and scrutinizing the spongy earth close to the water. If the missing animal had crossed the creek she could not have failed to leave distinct footprints.
CHAPTER II.
THE TINKLE OF A BELL.
The examination of the shore of the creek had lasted but a few minutes, when Terry Clark, pointing to the moist earth at their feet, called out in some excitement:
"Do ye mind that now?"
There, sure enough, were the footprints of a cow that had entered the stream from the same side on which the boys stood. The impressions could be seen for some distance in the clear water, which in the middle of the stream was no more than a yard deep, and they were plainly observed where the animal had emerged on the other side.
"I don't suppose there is any difference in the tracks of cows, but I guess, Terry, that we are safe in making up our minds we are on the trail of Brindle."
"I'm thinking the same," replied the other, who was not only looking across the creek, but into the woods beyond, as though he expected to catch sight of the cow herself; "though it may be the one that crossed there isn't the one that we're after."
Fred Linden was asking himself whether there was not some way in which they could reach the other side without going to the trouble of removing their shoes and leggins, and hunting a shallow portion, or allowing their garments to become saturated. He exclaimed: "Why didn't I think of it? There's our canoe!"
A number of these frail craft were owned in Greville, and Fred had a fine one himself, which was only a short distance off. Three minutes later the two reached it.
The barken structure was moored by means of a long rope to a tree a considerable distance from the water, so that in case of one of those sudden rises that sometimes took place, it would not be carried away by the freshet. The boat was quickly launched, and a few strokes of the paddle carried the two to the opposite bank of the stream.
"I wonder whether there is any danger of a rise," remarked Fred, as he carried the rope to a tree twenty feet distant and made it fast to a limb; "there was a good deal of thunder and lightning last night off to the east."
"But the creek doesn't come from that way," said the surprised Terry; "so what is the odds, as me father