a redskin would make
no more noise in cutting them holes and gashes, than you would in
cutting a hunk of deer's flesh for your dinner. He would lie on the
ground, and wriggle from one to another like an eel; but I reckon he
didn't begin till the camp was still. The canoes wasn't hauled up till
we had sarched the woods, as we thought, and then we was moving about
close by them till we lay down.

"I was standing theer on the water's edge not six feet away from that
canoe. I never moved for two hours, and, quiet as a redskin may be, he
must have taken time to do that damage, so as I never heard a sound as
loud as the falling of a leaf. No, I reckon as he was at the very least
two hours over that job. He may have been gone four hours or a bit
over, but not more; but that don't give us much of a start. It would
take him an hour and a half to get to the fort, then he would have to
report to the French chap in command, and then there might be some talk
before he set out with the redskins, leaving the French to follow."

"It's no use thinking of mending the canoes, I suppose," James asked.

The hunter shook his head.

"It would take two or three hours to get fresh bark and mend those
holes," he said, "and we haven't got as many minutes to spare. There,
now, we are off."

While they had been speaking, Rogers had been holding a consultation
with two or three of his most experienced followers, and they had
arrived at pretty nearly the same conclusion as that of Rogers, namely,
that the Indian had probably taken two or three hours in damaging the
canoes and getting fairly away into the forest; but that, even if he
had done so, the Iroquois would be up in the course of half an hour.

"Let each man pack his share of meat on his back," Rogers said. "Don't
leave a scrap behind. Quick, lads, there's not a minute to be lost.
It's a case of legs, now. There's no hiding the trail of thirty men
from redskin eyes."

In a couple of minutes, all were ready for the start, and Rogers at
once led the way, at a long slinging trot, straight back from the lake,
first saying:

"Pick your way, lads, and don't tread on a fallen stick. There is just
one chance of saving our scalps, and only one, and that depends upon
silence."

As James ran along, at the heels of Nat, he was struck with the
strangeness of the scene, and the noiselessness with which the band of
moccasin-footed men flitted among the trees. Not a word was spoken. All
had impli