Doby did not scream--he could not. Kenton never moved, resistance was futile. In a great swoop the Indians bore down upon them. They were covered with a shower of blue-jay feathers thrown by murderous fingers as with wild gestures and wilder laughter the Indians vanished into the canebrake to follow the buffalo north for more profitable hunting. Surprised Boonesboro did not know what to make of the flurry. The sentries halloed from the "flankers," and the Long Hunters, who had never thought to see them again, swung wide the gates, and Kenton and Doby swam across to Boonesboro--the end of their trail. VI LEFT HIND FOOT _A First Survey for the Underground Railway_ AS though bell metal had been softly touched, a note of clear low mirth came to the ear. Irresistible chuckles, one after another, in purest glee followed. Gurgle upon gurgle of laughter was added to it. And Obadiah Holman, who never in his life had heard anything quite so musical or so funny, burst into sympathetic giggles before he was really awake or knew what it was all about. He was curled up on a bundle in an emigrant wagon. He raised his head and peeped out of the round hole in the back of its canvas cover. A hard day's ride had tired him. He had climbed into this wagon for a short snooze and had taken instead a heavy sleep of several hours. During that time his company of emigrants had been joined by another wagon-train which they were expecting from a detour to the east, and all had gone into camp together for the night. The boy looked out on such a curious scene that he asked of himself, "Where am I, Doby?" to be sure that he was not still in dreamland. Against a purple sky, star-spangled, stood a solid bank of black-green forest. In front of this woodsy background were the white tops of the wagons. Silhouetted upon their canvases were the horses and the cows, picketed for the night inside the protecting wall of the wagon-beds. In the center, under the red glow of after-supper fires, a few belated emigrants were finishing their tasks. Among them Doby saw, what he had never seen before, what he had been expecting to see with this coming wagon-train, and what he was hoping for a glimpse of--black men! Close to the tail-gate of the wagon, on a saddle which he was supposed to be cleaning, sat a youth who was the color of a "tar baby." There was a gourd in his hand. Out of his round throat came those sounds which had so delighted the boy. And every time he laughed he waved the gourd, threw back his kinky head, opened a tremendous mouth, and showed a double set of teeth perfect enough for a dentist's sign. A mocking-bird might have envied the trill in his laugh. He rolled up his eyes until only the whites showed. Doby clutched the canvas in alarm. What if they should not come down again? "So that is a darky," he thought as he stared. "I can guess how he got the name."