Half a mile up the trail we came to a clearing where some storm of bygone years had battered down a belt of sturdy timber. We ran for another half-mile beyond this before Ta-wan-ne-ars slowed his pace and commenced to study the leaf barriers that walled the slot of the trail. Presently he stopped.
"Walk in my tracks, brother," he said. "And be certain that you do not bruise a twig."
With the utmost caution he parted the screen of underbrush on our right hand, and revealed a tunnel through the greenery into which he led the way, hesitating at each step until he had gently thrust aside the intervening foliage. Once in the tunnel, however, his care was abandoned, and he ran quickly to the trunk of a huge pine which soared upward like a monumental column, high above the surrounding trees. He leaned his musket against the pitchy bole.
"The symbol of the Long House," he said tapping the swelling girth of it. "Strength and symmetry and grandeur. We will climb, brother."
He swung himself up into the branches, which formed a perfect ladder, firm under foot, behind the screen of the pine-needles. When the other tree-tops were beneath us, he straddled a bough and cleared a loop-hole from which we might look out over the forest we had traversed.
"How did you know this tree was here?" I questioned curiously.
"Upon occasion enemies penetrate the Long House, so we must be able to see who follow us."
"Do you know that those who follow us are enemies?"
He shook his head.
"If they were friends 'twas strange they did not try to overtake us, brother. My people like company when they travel."