“You have scarce yet closed your eyes, Loskiel.”

“Why are you seated upright wide awake, my brother?”

“There is evil in the wind.”

“There is no wind stirring.”

“A witch-wind came slyly while you slept.  Did you not dream, Loskiel?” In spite of me I shivered again.

“That is foolishness,” said I.  “The Wyandotte’s silly talk has made us wakeful.  Our sentinels watch.  Sleep, Mayaro.”

“Have you need of sleep, Loskiel?”

“I?  No.  Sleep you, then, and I will sit awake if it reassures you.”

The Sagamore set his mouth close to my ear: 

“The Wyandotte is not posted where you placed him.”

“What?  How do you know?”

“I went out to see.  He sits on a rock close to the water.”

“Damn him,” I muttered angrily.  “I’ll teach him——­”

“No!”

The Mohican’s iron grip held me in my place.

“The Night-Hawk understands.  Let the Wyandotte remain unrebuked and undisturbed while I creep down to yonder ford.”

“I do not intend to reconnoitre the ford until dawn,” I whispered.

“Let me go, Loskiel.”

“Alone?”

“Secretly and alone.  The Siwanois is a magic clan.  Their Sagamores see and hear where others perceive nothing.  Let me go, Loskiel.”

“Then I go, also.”

“No.”

“What of our blood-brotherhood, then?”

There was a silence; then the Mohican rose, and taking my hand in his drew me noiselessly to my feet beside him.

By sense of touch alone we lifted our rifles from our blankets, blew the powder from the pans, reprimed.  Then, laying my left arm lightly on his shoulder, I followed his silent figure over the moss and down among the huge and phantom trees faintly outlined against the starlit water.

CHAPTER XII

 At the ford

When at length from the forest’s edge we saw star-beams splintering over broken water, cutting the flat, translucent darkness of the river with necklaces of light, we halted; for this was the ford foaming there in obscurity with its silvery, mellow voice, unheeded in the wilderness, yet calling ever as that far voice called through the shadows of ages dead.

Now, from where we stood the faint line of sparkles seemed to run a little way into the darkness and vanish.  But the indications were sufficient to mark the spot where we should enter the water; and, stepping with infinite precaution, we descended to the gravel.  Here we stripped to the clout and laid our rifles on our moccasins, covering the pans with our hunting shirts.  Then we strapped on our war-belts, loosening knife and hatchet, pulled over our feet our spare ankle-moccasins of oiled moose-hide soled with the coarse hair of the great, blundering beast himself.

I led, setting foot in the icy water, and moving out into the shadow with no more noise than a chub’s swirl or a minnow’s spatter-leap when a great chain-pike snaps at him.