“Have ye now? Waal, it’s good to be looked fer—better’n when folks hopes ye will stay away.” Barringford winked one eye. “I had to stop at Albany on business. How air ye, an’ where is Henry?”
“Henry—oh, Sam, how can I tell you. He——”
“Don’t say Henry is dead, lad—no, no, not that!” And all the color in the honest hunter’s face seemed to die away. “He’s alive, o’ course he is.”
“I—I hope so. But I don’t know. We had a fearful fight with the Indians, and Henry was captured by them, and by some Frenchmen, and taken away in a boat.” And Dave told the whole story, just as it has been written in these pages.
Sam Barringford listened in utter silence, shaking his head from time to time, to show that he understood. Henry was very dear to him, as old readers of this series know, and the pair had been on many a hunting expedition together.
“I don’t think the Frenchmen would kill him,—not in cold blood and they wearing the army uniform,” he said slowly. “But the redskins are the Old Nick’s own, and if they got Henry to themselves——”
“That is what I am thinking, Sam. Oh, it is awful.”
“Ye got no news at all?”
“Not a word.”
“Have ye been back to the spot?”