"The same boot-prints as on the sand! A small man," observed Radisson.
But when we came to the sloping bank, where the land fell sheer away to a dry, pebbly reach, M. Radisson pulled a puzzled brow.
"They must have taken shelter from the rain. They must have been under your feet."
"But where are their foot-marks?" I asked.
"Washed out by the rain," said he; but that was one of the untruths with which a man who is ever telling untruths sometimes deceives himself; for if the bank sheltered the intruders from the rain, it also sheltered their foot-marks, and there was not a trace.
"All the same," said M. de Radisson, "we shall make these Indians our friends by taking them back to the fort with us."
"Ramsay," he remarked on the way, "there's a game to play."
"So it seems."
"Hold yourself in," said he sententiously.
I walked on listening.