r you have found out what you came to seek, captain. What's
the next thing?"

"We must discover, if we can, whether they mean to go up the lakes in
boats, or to march through the woods," James replied. "They will have a
tremendous job getting any guns through the woods, but, if they are
going by water, of course they can bring them."

"Very well," Nat replied. "In that case, captain, my advice is, you
stop in the woods, and Jonathan and I will go down past the fort to the
shore, and see what provision they are making in that way. You see, the
place swarms with Canadians, and you would be sure to be spoken to.
Redskins don't talk much to each other, unless there is some need for
words, and we can go right through the French camp without fear. The
only danger is of some loping Mohawk coming up to us, and I don't
reckon there are many of 'em in the camp, perhaps nary a one."

Although James did not like his followers to go into danger, without
his sharing it, he saw that his presence would enormously add to their
risks, and therefore agreed to their plan. Withdrawing some distance
into the wood, and choosing a thick growth of underwood, he entered,
and lay down in the bushes, while the two scouts walked quietly away
towards the camp.

Two hours passed. Several times he heard footsteps in the wood near
him, and, peering through the leaves, caught sight of parties of
Indians going towards the camp, either late arrivals from Montreal, or
bands that had been out scouting or hunting. At the end of the two
hours, to his great relief, he saw two figures coming from the other
way through the woods, and at once recognized the scouts. He crawled
out and joined them, as they came up.

"Thank God you are back again! I have been in a fever, all the time you
have been away."

"I wish I had known the precise place where you were hiding. I should
have made a sign to you to keep quiet; but it ain't of no use, now."

"What's the matter then, Nat?"

"I ain't quite sure as anything is the matter," the scout replied; "but
I am feared of it. As bad luck would have it, just as we were coming
back through the camp, we came upon a Mohawk chief. He looked hard at
us, and then came up and said:

"'The Owl thought that he knew all his brothers; but here are two whose
faces are strange to him.'

"Of course, I told him that we had been living and hunting, for years,
in the English colony, but that, hearing that the Mohawks had joined
the F