“Back out of here, for God’s sake!” I managed to exclaim through parched lips.  “That devil-thing is coming this way!”

He struggled desperately in the darkness, tugging madly at some obstacle, an oath smothered on his lips.  I waited and listened, every nerve on edge.

“Dern it all, but I can’t!” he groaned at last.  “My blame of gun hes got wedged, and won’t give an inch.”

Then a half-smothered laugh rippled out of the gloom just in front of me.

“Heaven protect me, but it’s Wayland!” came a voice, and the laughter broke into a roar of merriment.

“Mon Dieu!  Mon Dieu!  This will be the death of me!”

The voice, choked and muffled as it was, sounded strangely hollow in that dark cave; yet it had a familiar tone.  So surprising was the situation, that I could only stare into the black void, speechless.  It was Burns who realized the need of action.

“Whoever the dern fool is,” he growled, his voice hoarse with anger, “choke the wind out of him, or his blame howling will bring every Injun on the river yere!”

“De Croix!” I exclaimed quickly, aroused to recollection by the seriousness of the situation, “stop that infernal racket, or the two of us will throttle you!”

He puffed and gurgled, striving his best to smother the sense of ludicrousness that mastered him.  To me there was small cause for merriment; the supreme terror of those moments merged into hot anger at the deception, and I crept forward eager to plant my hand upon the rascal’s throat.

“What French mockery is this?” I exclaimed, my hand hard upon his arm.  “Think you, Captain de Croix, that you can play such tricks in this wilderness, and not be made to pay for them?”

I felt him tremble under my fierce grasp; yet it was not from fear, for my words only served to loosen his laughter once more.  Burns now broke in, shoving the barrel of his long rifle forward over my shoulder till he struck the Frenchman a blow that effectually silenced him.

“You chattering ape!” he said, growling like an angry bear, “another yawp like that, and I ’ll blow a hole clean through you!  Now, you French ninny, tell us what this means, an’ be quick about it if ye want ter save yer hide!”

De Croix did not answer, but he ceased to laugh, and panted as if the breath had been knocked out of him.  Another impatient movement by Burns led me to speak up hastily in his defence.

“Wait,” I said, laying my grasp upon his gun, “he has no breath left with which to make reply.  ’T is the French gallant who raced with me, the same whom you met at Hawkins’s Ford; and no doubt he felt good reason to play the ghost here in this dark pit.”

“Ay,” panted De Croix painfully, “I truly thought the savages were upon me, and sought to frighten them by the only means I could devise. Sacre! but you hit me a sore blow in the ribs!  If I have frightened you, ’t was no worse than the terror that took me at your entrance here.”