"Can't tell it now," replied the Irishman, as though the subject were distasteful to him.
At this moment Waring made his appearance, and was shortly followed by Mr. Lander, who, taking a seat near the cabin, maintained a strict silence during the conversation of the others.
Hezekiah merely glanced at the young man, and saw, as if by instinct, that the same sense of impending danger that so troubled himself, was shared by him also. There was an anxious expression upon his countenance that he had not seen there before; a certain restless nervousness in his manner, which he sought in vain to conceal.
"We are going to have a dark night of it," said he, looking up to the sky.
"As dark as Egypt," added Hezekiah. "I recollect that I nearly battered my brains out, last night, in trying to walk through the woods."
"The moon will not be up till three o'clock in the morning, and, I might as well be plain with you, friends, it will be life and death with us before that time."
"Just what we're thinkin'. Drat the Indians," exclaimed Hezekiah. "I can feel it in my bones that I am going to get into a scrape to-night."
CHAPTER IV.
THE NIGHT ATTACK.