“I will return to the tree and take another look at the movements of the savages,” le Bourdon concluded by saying.  “By this time their fire must be lighted; and by the aid of my glass a better insight may be had into their plans and feelings.”

The bee-hunter now went back to his tree, whither he was slowly followed by Margery; the girl yielding to a feverish desire to accompany him, at the very time she was half restrained by maiden bashfulness; though anxiety and the wish to learn the worst as speedily as possible, prevailed.

“They have kindled a blazing fire, and the whole of the inside of the house is as bright as if illuminated,” said le Bourdon, who was now carefully bestowed among the branches of his small tree.  “There are lots of the red devils moving about the chiente, inside and out; and they seem to have fish as well as venison to cook.  Aye, there goes more dry brush on the fire to brighten up the picture, and daylight is almost eclipsed.  As I live, they have a prisoner among ’em!”

“A prisoner!” exclaimed Margery, in the gentle tones of female pity.  “Not a white person, surely?”

“No—­he is a red-skin like all of them—­but—­wait a minute till I can get the glass a little more steady.  Yes—­it is so—­I was right at first!”

“What is so, Bourdon—­and in what are you right?”

“You may remember, Blossom, that your brother and I spoke of the two Injins who visited me in the Openings.  One was a Pottawattamie and the other a Chippewa.  The first we found dead and scalped, after he had left us; and the last is now in yonder hut, bound and a prisoner.  He has taken to the lake on his way to Fort Dearborn, and has, with all his craft and resolution, fallen into enemies’ hands.  Well will it be for him if his captors do not learn what befell the warrior who was slain near my cabin, and left seated against a tree!”

“Do you think these savages mean to revenge the death of their brother on this unfortunate wretch?”

“I know that he is in the pay of our general at Detroit, while the Pottawattamies are in the pay of the English.  This of itself would make them enemies, and has no doubt been the cause of his being taken; but I do not well see how Injins on the lake here can know anything of what happened some fifty miles or so up in the Openings.”

“Perhaps the savages in the canoes belong to the same party as the warrior you call Elksfoot, and that they have had the means of learning his death, and by whose hand he fell.”

The bee-hunter was surprised at the quickness of the girl’s wit, the suggestion being as discreet as it was ingenious.  The manner in which intelligence flies through the wilderness had often surprised him, and certainly it was possible that the party now before him might have heard of the fate of the chief whose body he had found in the Openings, short as was the time for the news to have gone so far.  The circumstance that the canoes had come from the northward was against the inference, however, and after musing a minute on the facts, le Bourdon mentioned this objection to his companion.