"Guides! move on!" said Minawanda; "follow, brothers, they will lead you to your own people—and when there, forget not that a generous, disinterested deed may be performed by an Indian, although he risks life in so doing." So saying, he shook hands with them all in rapid succession, and darting away, they were alone with the guides, whom they saw were two in number, and mounted like themselves.
"Well, Jones," one of them said, in a very subdued tone, "if this is not one of the queerest pieces of work I ever saw, then call me an Arab."
"Never mind, Cole," the other answered, "push ahead as fast as you can, or the Indians will broil us yet. We must get a good start to cheat the rascally red-skins."
"Hush about the broiling, you make me nervous. How about our company? All there?" again sung out the one called by his companion, Jones.
"Here! all right; five of us, following we do not know who, nor where he will lead us to," said Howe, in a merry tone.
"Don't know? Well, perhaps you never heard of Jones, son of old Major Jones, away down in old Connecticut. That is me, and I guess you will not be sorry you are following me, especially as Cole says, we were all to be broiled in a heap by those red skins."
"That I shall not, and right glad I am of your services to help us out of as deep an entanglement as I think ever a set of Christians got into," said the trapper.
"Well, I do not know, but I guess we will cheat them; the moon will be up soon, and then we can ride faster," replied Jones.
"Are you sure of the way you have to go?" asked Sidney, who was still nervous about getting bewildered in the forest.
"I guess I am," replied Jones. "Did I not come over it this morning?"