“It should be easy enough for us who are five to beat two warriors,” said Robert.

“We can surely beat two,” said Tayoga, “but they will try to hold us while they call help.  It will not be long before you hear the cry of a night bird, doubtless an owl.”

“Have they begun to move again?” asked Robert.

“I cannot hear a sound.  Perhaps they are stirring, but they creep so cautiously that they make no noise at all.  It would be their object to make their own position uncertain and then we would go on at great peril from their bullets.  It will be best for us to stay a while where we are.”

Tayoga’s words were accepted at once as wise by the others.  It was impossible to tell where the two warriors now lay, and, if they undertook to go on, their figures would be disclosed at once by the brilliant moonshine.  So they flattened themselves against the ground in the shadow of the bushes and waited patiently.  The time seemed to Grosvenor to be forever, but he thrilled with the belief in coming combat.  He still felt that he was in the best of all company for forest and midnight battle, and he did not fear the issue.

Willet was hopeful that the skies would darken, but they did not do so.  The persistent moon and a host of stars continued to shine down, flooding the forest with light, and he knew that if any one of them stood up a bullet would be his instant welcome.  At last came the cry of the night bird, the note of the owl, as Tayoga had predicted, rising from a point to their right and somewhat behind them, but too far away for rifle shot.  It was a singular note, wild, desolate and full of menace.

“There may have been another band of warriors in this direction,” whispered Tayoga, “perhaps a group of hunters who had not yet returned to St. Luc, and he is calling to them.”

“No earthly doubt of it,” said Black Rifle.  “Can you hear the reply, Tayoga?”

“Now I hear it, though it is very faint.  It is from the south and the warriors will soon be here.  We shall have a band to fight.”

“Then we’d better bear off toward the west,” said Willet.  “Come, lads, we have to creep for it.”

They made their way very slowly on hands and knees away from the lake, Willet leading and Tayoga bringing up the rear.  It was hard and painful work for Grosvenor, but again he succeeded in advancing without noise, and he began to think they would elude the vigilance of the savage scouts, when a sibilant whisper from Willet warned them to fall flat again.  His command was just in time as a rifle cracked in the bushes ahead of them, and Grosvenor distinctly heard the bullet as it hissed over their heads.  Willet threw his rifle to his shoulder but quickly took it down again.  The Indian who had fired was gone and a little puff of smoke rising above the bushes told where he had been.  Then the five crept away toward the right and drew into a slight hollow, rimmed around with bushes, where they lay hugging the earth.