a mile of us
in that direction."

"I smell it too," said Amos. "Let us creep up that way and see their
camp."

"Be careful, then," whispered Du Lhut, "for your lives may hang from a
cracking twig."

They advanced very slowly and cautiously until suddenly the red flare of
a leaping fire twinkled between the distant trunks. Still slipping
through the brushwood, they worked round until they had found a point
from which they could see without a risk of being seen.

A great blaze of dry logs crackled and spurtled in the centre of a small
clearing. The ruddy flames roared upwards, and the smoke spread out
above it until it looked like a strange tree with gray foliage and trunk
of fire. But no living being was in sight and the huge fire roared and
swayed in absolute solitude in the midst of the silent woodlands.
Nearer they crept and nearer, but there was no movement save the rush of
the flames, and no sound but the snapping of the sticks.

"Shall we go up to it?" whispered De Catinat. The wary old pioneer
shook his head. "It may be a trap," said he.

"Or an abandoned camp?"

"No, it has not been lit more than an hour."

"Besides, it is far too great for a camp fire," said Amos.

"What do you make of it?" asked Du Lhut.

"A signal."

"Yes, I daresay that you are right. This light is not a safe neighbour,
so we shall edge away from it and then make a straight line for Sainte
Marie."

The flames were soon but a twinkling point behind them, and at last
vanished behind the trees. Du Lhut pushed on rapidly until they came to
the edge of a moonlit clearing. He was about to skirt this, as he had
done others, when suddenly he caught De Catinat by the shoulder and
pushed him down behind a clump of sumach, while Amos did the same with
Ephraim Savage.

A man was walking down the other side of the open space. He had just
emerged, and was crossing it diagonally, making in the direction of the
river. His body was bent double, but as he came out from the shadow of
the trees they could see that he was an Indian brave in full war-paint,
with leggings, loin-cloth, and musket. Close at his heels came a
second, and then a third and a fourth, on and on until it seemed as if
the wood were full of men, and that the line would never come to an end.
They flitted past like shadows in the moonlight, in absolute silence,
all crouching and running in the same swift stealthy fashion. Last of
all came a man in the fringed tu