But Menehwehna stepped close up to him and pointed. Then they saw, and understood.
The man was dead; dead and scalped—a horrible sight.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FARTHER SLOPE.
Barboux's complexion had turned to a sick yellow beneath its mottles. He had been walking hard, and had eaten too much throughout the voyage; no doubt, too, the sunset light painted his colour deeper. But the man fairly twittered.
Menehwehna muttered an Indian name.
"Eh? Speak low, for the love of God!" The sergeant swept the cliffs above and around with a shuddering glance.
"Les Agniers, as you call them—but Iroquois for certain. The man, you see, is Canayan—" Menehwehna began coolly to handle the corpse. "He has been dead for hours, but not many hours." He lifted an arm and let it fall, after trying the rigidity of the muscles. "Not many hours," he repeated; and signed to Muskingon, who began to crawl forward and, from the gap of the pass, to reconnoitre the slope below.
"And in the interval they have been tracking us, belike?"