But Fate willed otherwise.
One of Old Cy’s first and most far-sighted bits of work, after being left with the hermit the previous autumn, had been the erection of an ice-house out of large saplings. It stood at the foot of a high bank on the north of the knoll and close to the lake, and here, out of the sunshine, yet handy to fill, stood his creation. Its double walls of poles were stuffed with moss, its roof chinked with blue clay, a sliding door gave ingress, and even now, with summer almost gone, an ample supply of ice remained in it.
In the division of duties among these campers, Levi usually started the morning fire while Old Cy visited the ice-house for anything needed. One morning after the new cabin was completed, he came here as usual.
A fine string of trout caught by Martin and Ray the day before were hanging in this ice-house, and securing what was needed, Old Cy closed the door and turned away. As usual with him, he glanced up and down the narrow beach to see if a deer had wandered along there that morning, and in doing so he now saw, close to the water’s edge and distinctly outlined in the damp sand, the print of a moccasined foot.
It was of extra large size, and as Old Cy bent over it, he saw it had recently been made. Glancing along toward the head of this cove, he saw more tracks, and two rods away, the sharp furrow of a canoe prow in the sand.
“It’s that pesky half-breed, sure’s a gun,” he muttered, stooping over the track, “fer a good bit o’ his legs was turned up to walk on, and he wore moccasins t’other day.”
Curious now, and somewhat startled, he looked along where the narrow beach curved out and around to the landing, and saw the tracks led that way. Then picking his way so as not to obscure them, he followed until not three rods from the new cabin they left the beach and were plainly visible behind a couple of spruces, in the soft carpet of needles, which was crushed for a small space, where some one had stood.
Returning to camp, Old Cy motioned to Levi and Martin. All three returned to the ice-house, looked where the canoe had cut its furrow, took up the trail to its ending beside the two trees, and then glanced into one another’s eyes with serious, sobered, troubled faces.
And well they might; for the evening previous they had all been grouped upon the piazza of this new cabin until late, while scarce three rods away a spying enemy, presumably this half-breed, had stood and watched them.