"Yes," said the Seneca briefly. "And now we will go along as if we did not know they were near us."
"Are they not likely to attack?" I interposed.
"No, they will not attack unless they have to for we are still near the Mohawk Castle, although 'tis upon the opposite bank of the river. They will leave us alone until night."
"But why can not we attack them!"
A look of ferocity which was almost demoniac changed his usually pleasant features into an awful mask.
"In an ambuscade one might escape. No, my brother Ormerod, we will wait until they attack us. Then——"
He paused significantly.
"Not one of the Keepers shall return to tell Murray how his brothers died."
We took up the march. 'Twas already mid-afternoon, and shortly the dimness of twilight descended upon the trail, as the level rays of the setting sun were turned aside by the interlacing masses of vegetation.
Once, I remember, we passed along the edge of a swampy tract, and I saw for the first time that industrious animal, the beaver, whose pelt was the principal stake for which France and England contended in the great game upon the issue of which depended the future of a continent. They had erected a dam across one end of a stream to make a pond, and their engineers were busily at work floating trees into place to reënforce a weak point in the structure. Other trees a few feet from the trail were gnawed in preparation for felling.