fur-traders, bent on indiscriminate revenge.
It was quite true, in his opinion, that a murderer should be punished
with death, and that the pursuit and capture of a murderer was not only
a legitimate act in itself but, in the circumstances, a bounden duty on
his part. Yet it was equally true that most of the men with whom he was
associated were thirsting for vengeance, and from past experience he
knew full well that there would be no attempt to find out the murderer,
but a simple and general massacre of all the Indians whom they could
overtake.

Then it suddenly occurred to him that the murderer had already been shot
by Redhand, so that his mission was one of simple revenge; but, a moment
after, it flashed across his troubled mind that Lincoln had been left in
the fort wounded--might possibly be dead by that time; so that there
were probably among the flying savages other murderers to be dealt with.
This idea was strengthened by another thought, namely, that the savage
who stabbed and scalped Dupont might not have been the savage who shot
him. The complication and aggregate of improbability amounted, in
Bertram's mind, so nearly to a certainty, that he dismissed the
digressive question as to whether there might or might not be a murderer
among the Indians, and returned to the original proposition, as to
whether it was right in him to take part in a pursuit of vengeance that
would very likely terminate murderously. But before he could come to
any satisfactory conclusion on that point he and Bounce found themselves
suddenly in the midst of the cavalcade, which had halted on the summit
of the ridge, in order to allow them to come up.

"Here we are, lads," cried Macgregor, his flushed face still blazing
with wrath, which he made no effort to subdue, and his eyes red with
prolonged debauchery, flashing like the eyes of a tiger--"here we are,
too late to cut off the retreat o' these detestable reptiles from the
woods, but not too late to circumvent them."

The fur trader spoke rapidly, almost breathlessly, and pointed to the
band of Indians they were in pursuit of, who, observing that their
pursuers had halted, also drew rein on the edge of a belt of thick
forest that extended for miles into the mountains. They appeared to
wait, in order to ascertain what their enemies meant to do.

"The villains," continued Macgregor, "think we've given up pursuit as
hopeless, but they're mistaken--they're mistaken, as they'll find t