After he had shouted several times the little party in front drew up and stood still, waiting; there was something in their attitudes that gave Stenson his first "jolt," as he would have called a shock of surprise. In five minutes it was more than a "jolt," it was astonishment mixed with exasperation.
He and Jukes saw as soon as they came within speaking distance, a Redskin girl, rather tall, dressed in the usual winter dress of the Indians, which was not very different from his own. With her was a shortish boy, and between them was a hand sled laden with pelts. That was all.
The girl looked at him with the half shy, inscrutable gaze of a Redskin girl. Vaguely he remembered to have seen her, or someone like her. He demanded her name and business.
"Shines-in-the-Night, daughter of Ogâ the Pickerel," she answered in her own tongue. "I and my brother the Lizard carry pelts across to New Brunswick House by the farther river."
It was a deadlock! The trail, he questioned her of the way she'd come, was from the upper stream. It was perfectly simple, because the Chippewas were camped in the forest beyond Lindsay's log house. The trail was hers, then, not Nell's! Stenson could have killed these two in his fury, but he dared not; the Chippewa Chief would have killed him in return.
CHAPTER XII
THE FLIGHT CONTINUES
By this time it is understood what the plan was that Shines-in-the-Night put before Nell, when the Lizard brought news of the pursuers' nearness.
It was a wonderfully complete plan, because it included the making of a trail anew from the head of the lake and down the centre to the outlet of the river. The shrewd mind of the Redskin girl saw the necessity of this, because Stenson would not have been satisfied with a trail that began at the Wolf's Tooth Rocks. He would, of course, want to know by what track the fugitives reached it. The way they had really come the afternoon before, close to the bank, was partly obliterated by the thaw and partly defaced by the Lizard, who went back on it for some little distance till he had destroyed the connection with the camp on the rock.
At first Nell refused to agree, but Shines-in-the-Night made it quite plain that she and the Lizard would be in no danger.