“You come de stairs down, an’ you make me no trouble,” was the reply.
As there was no help for it, Henry descended to the ground floor of the farmhouse. The talking had brought the others to their feet and each Frenchman had a pistol drawn as he appeared.
“Jean Bevoir!” gasped Henry, as his eyes rested on one of the newcomers.
“Ha, you know me?” came in return. The trader gazed at Henry sharply, and uttered an imprecation in French. “It ees zat Henry Morris!”
“Henry Morris?” repeated the man who had remained below with Bevoir.
“Oui, Chalette;” and then he continued in French: “Do you not remember seeing him at Fort Niagara?”
“Yes. But he is not the Morris who came to the hospital,” answered Chalette, who was the prisoner who had escaped with Jean Bevoir, during the powder-house excitement.
“No, this is a cousin—the brother to that little Nell Morris.”
“Ah, I see. Is he alone? If he is, we have made a fine haul,” was Chalette’s comment.
“He is the only person I saw,” said the third Frenchman, a hunter named Gasse. “I will look again. You watch this fellow.”