“It is one gun-shot sound from here.”
“Tell him to lead on, then,” Washington bade. “But I’m beginning to think he means mischief.”
The Indian led on for two miles, always trending more northward; and in two miles they had not reached the cabin.
“Wait. Where is the cabin. Have you lost it?” Gist called.
“It is two whoops. Let my brothers follow.”
They did follow, for another two miles. The Hunter’s feet were heavy like lead, and his moccasins were soaked through and through. Washington stumbled and slipped, and climbed the hills bent away over as if he had no stomach and could scarcely stand.
The Indian kept pausing, and waiting for them to catch up with him. Then Washington panted:
“This is all nonsense, Gist. The sun is low, that Indian has no cabin, he is lying. We’ll camp at the next water, and make our own trail in the morning.”
“I’ll tell him to take us to water,” answered Gist.
The forest had been thick and silent, with never a game track in the snow. But presently it opened to a fine meadow, of long grass weighted down by the snow, and here and there a great, naked oak tree. The sun had set red in the west; but the light from the sky made the meadow pink, and the snow, freezing again after having softened, crashed under foot and cut one’s moccasins.