Wharton gently touched the shoulder of his companion as an appeal to him not to speak or make any sound. The two rose noiselessly to their feet and watched the strange being's actions.
The prow of the canoe having been forced far enough up the stony slope to hold it motionless, the Indian laid down his paddle, leaned forward, took the torch in hand, and then stepped from the boat. The torch was a piece of resinous pine, whose top leaned so far over the gunwale that there was no danger from the smoking flame. With this in his left hand he looked down at the embers of the late fire, some of them still giving forth a faint blue smoke, and he saw the few remaining fragments of the meal.
With much deliberation he gazed out over the moonlit lake, gradually coming back to such a position that when he peered into the gloomy depth of the woods his eyes seemed to be centred on the spot where the two boys looked silently and wonderingly at him in turn.
The strange being had no gun, but a knife and tomahawk protruded from the belt around his waist. He was dressed similarly to the Shawanoes whom they had encountered so recently, and there could be little doubt that he belonged to their tribe.
No figure could be more picturesque than that formed by this creature when he raised the flaming torch aloft, bent his head down and craned it forward, while his black eyes seemed to pierce the impenetrable gloom from whence the boys silently watched him.
His face was smeared in the truly frightful manner of his people, and his countenance and features were so irregular that he was forbidding to the last degree. He stood with one foot advanced, his attitude suggesting that of a man pausing on the edge of a ravine and peering across before venturing to leap.
He maintained this attitude for several minutes, as motionless as those toward whom he was staring. It seemed to Wharton that his flaming black eyes could look through solid wall or rock, and the youth held his gun ready to meet any sudden rush from him.
But he did not advance. Suddenly he resumed his weird chanting, and then began a fantastic dancing back and forth over the rock, keeping rude time by swaying the torch and the free arm. The exhibition was so grotesque that the spectators surmised the truth.
The explanation of it was that the Shawanoe was a zany or lunatic. The latter is as rare with the American race as it was with the African in the South before the war, but on no other theory could the course of the Indian be explained.
Neither Wharton nor Larry held a thought of harming him. Had he been Blazing Arrow himself they would not have done so, except in self-defence. Believing him harmless, they would have been glad to act the part of a friend toward him.