Ellis Edward Sylvester - Ned in the Block-House: A Tale of Early Days in the West стр 26.

If they would keep as far away from him as they were when his friend Ned Preston started on his desperate run for the block-house, of course he would be safe. He could wait where he was, lying flat on the ground, through all the long hours of the day, until the mantle of night should give him the chance for which he sighed.

Ah, but for one hour of darkness! His flight from the point of danger would be but pastime.

The single chance in a thousand was that which we have named: the remote possibility that none of the Wyandots would come any nearer to where he was hugging the river bank.

For a full hour Deerfoot was in suspense, with a fluttering hope that it might be his fortune to wait until the sun should climb to the zenith and sink in the west; for, young as was the Shawanoe, he had learned the great truth that in the affairs of this world no push or energy will win, where the virtue of patience is lacking. Many a time a single move, born of impatience, has brought irretrievable disaster, where success otherwise was certain.

As the Shawanoe lay against the bank, looking across the clearing toward the block-house, he recalled that message which, instead of being spoken, as were all that he knew of, was carried on the arrow he sent through the window. If he but understood how to place those words on paper or on a dried leaf even, he would send another missive to Colonel Preston, saying that, inasmuch as he was shut in from all hope of escape, he would make the effort to run across the open space, as did his friends before him.

But the thing was impossible: the door of the block-house was fastened, and if Deerfoot should start, he would reach it, if he reached it at all, before the Colonel could draw the first bolt. Even if the Shawanoe youth should succeed in making the point, which was extremely doubtful, now that the Wyandots were fully awake, the inevitable few seconds' halt there must prove fatal.

The short conversation which he had overheard, convinced him of the sentiments of Waughtauk and his warriors toward him, and led the young Shawanoe to determine on an effort to extricate himself. It is the very daring of such a scheme which sometimes succeeds, and he put it in execution without delay.

Instead of crouching to the ground, as he had been doing, he now rose upright and moved down the bank, in the direction of the three Wyandots who first turned him back. They were in their old position, and he had gone only a few steps when one of them turned his head and saw the youthful warrior approaching. He uttered a surprised "Hooh!" and the others looked around at the figure, as they might have done had it been an apparition.

The scheme of Deerfoot was to attempt the part of a friend of the Wyandots and consequently that of an enemy of the white race. He acted as if without thought of being anything else, and as though he never dreamed there was a suspicion of his loyalty.

At a leisurely gait he walked toward the three Indians, holding his head down somewhat, and glancing sideways through the scattered bushes at the top of the bank, as though afraid of a shot from the garrison.

"Have any of my brethren of the Wyandots been harmed by the dogs of the Yenghese?" asked Deerfoot in the high-flown language peculiar to his people.

"The eyes of Deerfoot must have been closed not to see Oo-oo-mat-ah lying on the ground before his eyes."

This was an allusion to the warrior who made the mistake of stopping Ned Preston when on his way to the block-house.

"Deerfoot saw Oo-oo-mat-ah fall, as falls the brave warrior fighting his foe; the eyes of Deerfoot were wet with tears, when his brave Wyandot brother fell."

Strictly speaking, a microscope would not have detected the first grain of truth in this grandiloquent declaration, which was accompanied by a gesture as though the audacious young Shawanoe was on the point of breaking into sobs again.

The apparent sincerity of Deerfoot's grief seemed to disarm the Wyandots for the moment, which was precisely what the young Shawanoe was seeking to do.

Having mastered his sorrow, he started down the river bank on the same slow gait, glancing sideways at the block-house as though he feared a shot from that point. But the Indians were not to be baffled in that fashion: their estimate of the daring Deerfoot was the same as Waughtauk's.

Without any further dissembling, one of the Wyandots, a lithe sinewy brave, fully six feet in height, bounded in front of the Shawanoe, and grasping his knife, said with flashing eyes

"Deerfoot is a dog! he is a traitor; he is a serpent that has two tongues! he shall die!"

The others stood a few feet behind the couple and watched the singular encounter.

The Wyandot, with the threatening words in his mouth, leaped toward Deerfoot, striking a vicious blow with his knife. It was a thrust which would have ended the career of the youthful brave, had it reached its mark.

But Deerfoot dodged it easily, and, without attempting to return it, shot under the infuriated arm and sped down the river bank with all the wonderful speed at his command.