“Wah!” the Hunter exclaimed. “I?”
“Yes.” Bright Lightning continued breathlessly. “I have your horse. He will carry us to the Forks. Then you will hide outside and I will go inside, and you shall wait. So if you want to play warrior, come, or I go alone. But two are better than one.”
“Good!” said the Hunter. Now he was tired no longer; he was all on fire with the scheme. It was true that many of the Indians who came with word of the French were probably spies, with forked tongues. The French were strong and clever, and gave more presents than the English. But Bright Lightning was smart, too; and women and girls could go in and out of places and not be noticed.
Maybe he should tell Washington first. No! This was Indian work, again. He might not be missed at all; Indians came and went and Washington was busy with the Long Knives, making the road.
So he said only: “Wait.” And he ran and got his blanket. He had carried his gun with him from his bed. One did not stir from camp without one’s gun.
He joined Bright Lightning. She guided him to the horse, and he mounted and she mounted behind him, and they rode north for the Forks, to learn what the French were doing at their great house named Fort Duquesne.
It was the second morning when they arrived. Over the point of land and over the two rivers that made it, and over the Ohio beyond, there lay a white fog. That was lucky. Out of the fog sounds floated—distant voices of persons and dogs, as if a large village were waking.
“Wah! To go in would be easy for even you,” said Bright Lightning. “But you might not get out again. I will go in. When I come out I will meet you here.”
So she hurried down into the fog blanket, and left the Hunter here upon the hill above it. The horse had been hidden in a leafy hollow near a spring. Robert promptly climbed into a tree, for the sun was rising and the fog would soon break.
What an amazing sight that was, below, as the fog blanket presently vanished in rifts and tatters! He saw the blue Monongahela and the blue Allegheny and the blue Ohio—all like a forked stick open toward him; and in the fork the strong fort of the French from Onontio, upon the very spot where he had met Washington and Gist bound for Logstown and Venango and Fort Le Boeuf, and from which Lieutenant Ward had been driven.