were entirely invisible to Ephraim Savage or
De Catinat.

"A full-grown warrior and a lad on his first warpath," said Du Lhut.
"They were moving fast, you see, for you can hardly see the heel marks
of their moccasins. They walked one behind the other. Now let us
follow them as they followed us, and see if we have better luck."

He sped swiftly along the trail with his musket cocked in his hand, the
others following hard upon his heels, but there was no sound, and no
sign of life from the shadowy woods in front of them. Suddenly Du Lhut
stopped and grounded his weapon.

"They are still behind us," he said.

"Still behind us?"

"Yes. This is the point where we branched off. They have hesitated a
moment, as you can see by their footmarks, and then they have followed
on."

"If we go round again and quicken our pace we may overtake them."

"No, they are on their guard now. They must know that it could only be
on their account that we went back on our tracks. Lie here behind the
fallen log and we shall see if we can catch a glimpse of them."

A great rotten trunk, all green with mould and blotched with pink and
purple fungi, lay to one side of where they stood. Behind this the
Frenchman crouched, and his three companions followed his example,
peering through the brushwood screen in front of them. Still the one
broad sheet of sunshine poured down between the two pines, but all else
was as dim and as silent as a vast cathedral with pillars of wood and
roof of leaf. Not a branch that creaked, nor a twig that snapped, nor
any sound at all save the sharp barking of a fox somewhere in the heart
of the forest. A thrill of excitement ran through the nerves of De
Catinat. It was like one of those games of hide-and-seek which the
court used to play, when Louis was in a sportive mood, among the oaks
and yew hedges of Versailles. But the forfeit there was a carved fan,
or a box of bonbons, and here it was death.

Ten minutes passed and there was no sign of any living thing behind
them.

"They are over in yonder thicket," whispered Du Lhut, nodding his head
towards a dense clump of brushwood, two hundred paces away.

"Have you seen them?"

"No."

"How do you know, then?"

"I saw a squirrel come from his hole in the great white beech-tree
yonder. He scuttled back again as if something had scared him.
From his hole he can see down into that brushwood."

"Do you think that they know that we are here?"

"T