Читать книгу The Trail of Black Hawk онлайн

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On and on Deerfoot led the way until they emerged from the woods onto the open prairie. There was an open space, at least a mile wide here, bordered on both sides by the forest and directly out upon this Deerfoot sped.

“They’ll see us here surely, Deerfoot,” panted Joseph. “We’ll be in plain sight and they can easily shoot us down.”

“Follow Deerfoot,” came the short, sharp reply, and neither Joseph nor his brother offered any more objections.

Deerfoot did not go far from the shelter of the trees, however. He ran perhaps twenty-five or thirty yards from the border of the forest and then turned abruptly to his left. The ground was hard here and the trail as a consequence difficult to follow. Deerfoot kept on in this new course perhaps fifty yards more and then made another sharp turn to his left. This brought them back toward the woods once more.

Both boys now saw Deerfoot’s plan. He was doubling on his tracks. The ground on the prairie was hard and along the surface of the earth ran a vein of solid rock. It would be almost impossible to follow a trail there, at least with any degree of speed, and Deerfoot had counted upon that as an aid. He hoped to gain a few precious moments by his strategy.