"Why did you not come down the regular path?" inquired Maggie; "Gravity seemed to have no difficulty in going away by it."
"There must be at least half a dozen Indians up there; they could have captured him without trouble, but they allowed him to get so far away that they calculated you would not suspect the danger, and might try to follow him, in which case every one of you would be in their hands this minute."
This information was startling, and the listeners were silent. Fred added:
"You can understand how great the risk was which I ran, and it is hard to explain why they didn't discover what I was doing."
"Perhaps they did."
"They would have fired on me had they known it; but there is so much deep shadow above, and they were so unsuspicious of any such proceeding, that I succeeded."
"It was a daring act, indeed, but what is to be the issue?"
"I saw that it would not do for you to remain until morning. If to-morrow's sun finds you here, you are doomed. You have no means of obtaining any food or water, and they can converge a dozen rifles on you, for they will gain the position from which we kept them a while ago."
"They have already done so," said Mr. Brainerd. "I saw, and was unable to prevent them."
"That settles the matter, then; we must get out of this place within the next two hours, and be well on our way toward the Delaware by daylight. We can't venture up the path, and, therefore—hello! What's that?"