“May I speak, Nat?” he asked, after they had seated themselves on the ground.

“Ay, you may speak, captain, but don’t you raise your voice above a whisper.  There is no saying what redskin ears may be near us.  I guess these forests are pretty well alive with them.  You may bet there isn’t a redskin, or one of the irregular Canadian bands, but is out arter us tonight.  The war whoop and the rifles will have put them all on the lookout.

“They will have seen that we were pretty well holding our own, and will guess that, when night came on, we should give the canoes the slip.  I guess they will have placed a lot of canoes and flatboats across the lake, opposite Crown Point, for they will know that we should either head back, or take to the woods.  I guess most of the redskins near Crown Point will have crossed over at this point, as, in course, we were more likely to land on this side.  I had a mighty good mind to land whar we was over there, but there are sure to be such a heap of Indians, making their way up that side from Montreal, that I judge this will be the best; but we shall have all we can do to get free of them.”

“Why didn’t you land at once, Nat, after we lost sight of them, instead of crossing over?”

“Because that’s where they will reckon we shall land, captain.  That’s where they will look for our tracks the first thing in the morning, and they will know that we can’t travel far such a dark night as this, and they will search every inch of the shore for three or four miles below where they lost sight of us, to find where we landed.  They would know well enough we couldn’t get ashore, without leaving tracks as they would make out, and they would reckon to pick up our trail fast enough, in the wood, and to overtake us before we had gone many miles.

“Now, you see, we have doubled on them.  The varmint in the woods will search the edge of the lake in the morning, but it’s a good long stretch to go over, and, if we have luck, they mayn’t strike on our landing place for some hours after daylight.  In course, they may hit on it earlier; still, it gives us a chance, anyhow.  Another thing is, we have twenty miles less to travel through the woods than if we had to start up there, and that makes all the difference when you’ve got redskins at your heels.  If we don’t have the bad luck to come across some of the varmint in the woods, I expect we shall carry our scalps back to Fort William Henry.

“Now you had best sleep till daybreak.  We sha’n’t get another chance till we get into the fort again.”

With the first dawn of morning, they were on their way.  Striking straight back into the woods, they walked fast, but with the greatest care and caution, occasionally making bends and detours, to prevent the redskins following their traces at a run, which they would have been able to do, had they walked in a straight line.  Whenever the ground was soft, they walked without trying to conceal their tracks, for Nat knew that, however carefully they progressed, the Indians would be able to make out their trail here.  When, however, they came to rocky and broken ground, they walked with the greatest caution, avoiding bruising any of the plants growing between the rocks.  After walking ten miles in this direction, they turned to the south.