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Entered according to Act of Congress, in June, 1807, by J. W. Burke & Cos., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the So. District of Georgia.
Vol. I.
Written for Burke’s Weekly.
MASOONER’S ISLAND ;
OR,
Dr. Gordon in Search of His Children.
BY REV. P . R. GOXJLDING,
Author of “ The Young Marooners.”
CHAPTER X.
THE ENCAMPMENT —OWL-IIOOTS —A NIGHT
SCOUT —MORE SHOOTING THAN WAS BAR-
GAINED FOR.
m pertaining to it, bad
Jfl&Y been effected with an
e J e ho concealment
tL and defence. Not on
ly had the tire for distilling
[their water and cooking
their supper, been kindled
in a concealed place, and
been fed with dry sticks
and twigs which gave the
greatest amount of beat
with the least of smoke
and flame, but the barge
was concealed behind a pile
of sea-weed and other stuff,
brought in from sea and
lodged against a mass of
hardened shell - rock on
shore; and the two tents,
pitched in the very heart
ot the cedar thicket, were
covered with a coat of leafy branches, so
thick as to conceal the white canvass that
peered above the dwarfy growth around.
Soon after the animated conversation
recorded in the preceding chapter had
subsided, and when the men began to
listen for the command, “All to quarters !”
the hoot of an owl was heard from the
neighboring forest, followed a few seconds
afterwards by an answering hoot from
the coast above, each seeming to be at the
MACON, GrA., SEPTEMBER 29, 1867.
distance of a quarter of a mile. The
sound was so perfectly in keeping with
the country that it would probably have
passed unnoticed had not Tomkins, in a
casual glance at Wildcat, observed the
coal black eye of the young Indian fixed
upon him with glistening, uneasy gaze.
Its meaning was too plain to be misinter-
preted, and yet the basis of its intended
report was so slender that lomkins le
solved to trouble no one with it but him
self. He simply announced to the others
that he was going out to reconoitre a
little before “turning in,” charged the
Corporal with the command during his
absence, and asked Dr. Gordon to allow
him, in the meanwhile, the company ot
Wildcat. Then shouldering a musket,
and motioning to his young companion
to do the same, he thrust a night-glass
into his bosom, and passing the sentinel,
who was posted in a concealed place on
the bluff, he moved rapidly, but silently,
along the beach in the direction from
which the last hoot had come.
“ So you think those were not owls we
heard ?” he said interrogatively to Wild.
cat, in a low murmur, as
soon as they were alone.
“Hot owl,” was the re
ply, “but red man in the
bush, and red man by the
water.”
“\ r ou think the men in
the canoes are on our trail?”
he asked again.
“ Think so,” was the la
conic answer.
“ I should like to find out
how many of them there
are,” Tomkins said.
As he spoke, there was
another hoot from the
woods back of the encamp
ment, followed by another
reply from the beach.
“ Can make canoe come
here, if Sergeant say so,”
Wildcat intimated.
“ How ?” Tomkins asked.
“Wildcat will talk like
red man in the bush,” he
replied.
« Did you notice the dif
ference in the two cries?
and can you hoot like each ?
Wildcat grunted assent in true Indian
style, then, in a low tone, imitated the
two cries, saying, “ Red man in bush say,
00-00-uh-00-oo! and red man by watei
say, 00-00-00-00-uh !”
“ That is well done,” Tomkins said in
admiration of the boys power of imita
tion.
“I will tell you very soon if it is best
to bring them.”
No. 13.