"What! do you think she would risk the vengeance of the old chief whose life she attempted to take?"
"She is a brave girl; she does not fear pain or death to serve those she loves."
"How can she, unprotected and alone, dare such perils? Why did she not tell us? We would have shared her danger."
"She feared for our lives more than for her own; that poor Indian girl has a noble heart. I care not now what befalls us; we have lost all that made life dear to us," said Louis gloomily, sinking his head between his knees.
"Hush, Louis; you are older than I, and ought to bear these trials with more courage. It was our own fault Indiana's leaving us; we left her so much alone to pine after her lost companion, she seemed to think that we did not care for her. Poor Indiana, she must have felt lonely and sad."
"I tell you what we will do, Hec,—make a log canoe. I found an old battered one lying on the shore, not far from Pine-tree Point. We have an axe and a tomahawk,—what should hinder us from making one like it?"
"True! we will set about it to-morrow."
"I wish it were morning, that we might set to work to cut down a good pine for the purpose."
"As soon as it is done, we will go up the river; anything is better than this dreadful suspense and inaction."
The early dawn saw the two cousins busily engaged chopping at a tree of suitable dimensions. They worked hard all that day, and the next, and the next, before the canoe was hollowed out; but, owing to their inexperience and the bluntness of their tools, their first attempt proved abortive—it was too heavy at one end, and did not balance well in the water.