“I have told Dolly all our adventur’s, Bourdon,” cried Gershom, as soon as the brief greetings were over, “and she tells me all’s right, hereabouts.  Three canoe-loads of Injins passed along shore, goin’ up the lake, she tells me, this very a’ternoon; but they didn’t see the smoke, the fire bein’ out, and must have thought the hut empty; if indeed, they knew anythin’ of it, at all.”

“The last is the most likely,” remarked Margery; “for I watched them narrowly from the beeches on the shore, and there was no pointing, or looking up, as would have happened had there been any one among them who could show the others a cabin.  Houses an’t so plenty, in this part of the country, that travellers pass without turning round to look at them.  An Injin has curiosity as well as a white man, though he manages so often to conceal it.”

“Didn’t you say, Blossom, that one of the canoes was much behind the others, and that a warrior in that canoe did look up toward this grove, as if searching for the cabin?” asked Dorothy.

“Either it was so, or my fears made it seem so.  The two canoes that passed first were well filled with Injins, each having eight in it; while the one that came last held but four warriors.  They were a mile apart, and the last canoe seemed to be trying to overtake the others.  I did think that nothing but their haste prevented the men in the last canoe from landing; but my fears may have made that seem so that was not so.”

As the cheek of the charming girl flushed with excitement, and her race became animated, Margery appeared marvellously handsome; more so, the bee-hunter fancied, than any other female he had ever before seen.  But her words impressed him quite as much as her looks; for he at once saw the importance of such an event, to persons in their situation.  The wind was rising on the lake, and it was ahead for the canoes; should the savages feel the necessity of making a harbor, they might return to the mouth of the Kalamazoo; a step that would endanger all their lives, in the event of these Indians proving to belong to those, whom there was now reason to believe were in British pay.  In times of peace, the intercourse between the whites and the red men was usually amicable, and seldom led to violence, unless through the effects of liquor; but, a price being placed on scalps, a very different state of things might be anticipated, as a consequence of the hostilities.  This was then a matter to be looked to; and, as evening was approaching, no time was to be lost.

The shores of Michigan are generally low, nor are harbors either numerous, or very easy of access.  It would be difficult, indeed, to find in any other part of the world, so great an extent of coast that possesses so little protection for the navigator, as that of this very lake.  There are a good many rivers, it is true, but usually they have bars, and are not easy of entrance.  This is the reason why that very convenient glove, the Constitution, which