I turned sharply and lifted my hand; and as the file halted I caught a glimpse of the Oneida, Tahoontowhee, on our right, and motioned him to cross, head the Wyandotte, and return with him.  And when in a few moments he came toward us, followed by the Huron, I said, addressing them all: 

“There should be a ford hereabouts, if I am not badly mistaken, and I think we have accidentally overrun it.  Did you see nothing that might indicate it, Black-Snake, my brother?”

There was a furtive flicker of the Wyandotte’s eyes which seemed to include everybody before him, then he said very coolly that he had seen no riffle that might indicate shallow water, but that there was a ford not far below, and we ought to strike it before sunset.

“Halt here,” said I, pretending to remain still unconvinced.  “Sagamore, do you come with me a rod or so upstream.”

“There is no ford within a rod or two,” said the Wyandotte stolidly.

And, after we had left the others, the Mohican murmured, as we hastened on: 

“No, not with one rod or two, but the third rod marks it.”

Presently, speeding under the outer fringe of trees, I caught sight of a thin line across the water, slanting from shore to shore—­ not a ripple, but as though the edge of an invisible reef slightly affected the smooth-flowing, glassy surface of the stream.

“He might have overlooked that,” said I.

The Sagamore’s visage became very smooth; and we climbed down among the willows toward the sand below, and there the Mohican dropped on his hands and knees.

Directly under his eyes I saw the faint print of a moccasin.  Startled, I said nothing; the Mohican studied the print for a few moments, then, crouching, crept forward among the sand-willows.  I followed; and at long intervals I could make out the string of moccasin tracks, still visible in the loose, dry sand.

“Could it be the St. Regis?” I whispered.  “He may have been here spearing fish.  These tracks are not new....  And the Wyandotte might have overlooked these, too.”

“Maybe St. Regis,” he said.

We had now crept nearly to the edge of the water, the dry and scarcely discernible tracks leading us.  But they were no fresher in the damp sand.  However, the Mohican did not seem satisfied, so we pulled off our thigh-moccasins and waded out.

Although the water looked deep enough along the unseen reef, yet we found nowhere more than four feet, and so crossed to the other side.  But before I could set foot on the shelving sand the Mohican pulled me back into the water and pointed.  There was no doubting the sign we looked upon.  A canoe had landed here within an hour, had been pushed off again with a paddle without anybody landing.  It was as plain as the nose on your face.

Which way had it gone, upstream or down?  If it had gone upstream, the Wyandotte must have seen it and passed it without reporting it.  In other words, he was a traitor.  But if the canoe had gone downstream from this spot, or from some spot on the left bank a little above it, there was nothing to prove that the Wyandotte had seen it.  In fact, there was every probability that he had not seen it at all.  And I said as much to the Sagamore.