"Yo' tole me not to speak or move or breve; if I don't speak or move, can't you let up on de breving bus'ness? I'm afraid it's gwine to bodder me to shet off breving."
"All right, so you don't forget to stay right where you are till I come back."
Kenton resumed his advance, keeping out of sight in the woods, until he had skirted three sides of the clearing and approached the river again, opposite the point where he had first halted with his companion, and failed to see the canoe.
As yet it was an absolute mystery as to what had become of the lesser boat. A half-dozen causes might account for its disappearance. It might have been set adrift by one of the Shawanoes, or captured and paddled across the river, or destroyed, or—
At that moment the figure of a sinewy Shawanoe shot up to view, as if from a jumping-box. He was near the canoe, but between it and Kenton, and so close, indeed, that but for the fact that his face was turned toward the river, he must have discovered the white man.
Kenton's heart gave a quick throb, for something in the shoulders, the back of the head and contour of the body suggested that the Indian was his old enemy, Wa-on-mon, The Panther.
"If it's the varmint himself," thought Kenton, "him and me can just as well have it now, even if there are others of his people not fur off."
Either the Indian did not see that on the river for which he was searching, or the view was satisfactory, for he now turned and looked toward the cabin. This brought his face into full view, and the glimpse which the white man caught from a peep around the edge of the bark showed the warrior to be a stranger.
Kenton's position enabled him to see the log cabin as clearly as did the Shawanoe, but it was impossible to detect anything to justify his interest in the building. The situation had become so peculiar that all the sagacity of the ranger was insufficient for him to decide upon the best course to pursue.
Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed, during which the warrior, sitting on the ground, with his back against the tree, remained as motionless as did The Panther, when a prisoner the night before on the flatboat.