“How went it with the Androscoggins?”
“There is nothing but victory to the brave,” she answered, evading the truth.
The old chief was not deceived. He eyed her with a keen, penetrating look, but said not a word.
Presently the group dispersed themselves to rest till the moon should set. The guardians of the cave inverted the torches, and a dim, sepulchral light played over the features of the sleeping warriors.
Acashee retired into a distant recess, and there practiced those incantations supposed to augur success in any contemplated enterprise.
Waiting till all was silent, Hope gathered her little figure closely to the floor of the cave, and slowly made her way to the entrance, nearing which, the roar of the waters made her movements less perceptible. In breathless silence she passed the council-fire, and threaded her way amid the group around it. She was cautious but fearless. A chief turned in his sleep; she stood erect with flashing eye. Her hand grasped the war-club beside him; had he moved again there was no mistaking the deadly purpose of the girl; but he slept on.
Her step was now firm, her air determined. She cast back a hurried glance—all was silent. With a bound she plunged amid the world of waters. A moment more and she stood upon the rocky plateau at the foot of the falls.
The moon was nearly down, and a thick mist hung over the river, of which the slight form of Hope seemed only a part. She stood for a few seconds and gave a soft but hurried glance at the majestic scenery—the starry sky, over which rushed the hurrying clouds, which herald the coming storm, and the mass of waters, pouring itself forever over its shelving steep.
Then she gathered her long hair into a knot, and with rapid feet ascended the bank. She hurried onward until she found the heap of dry wood and torches at Still-Water, and with eager haste she filled her arms and redescended.
She heaped these into a pile below the falls. She gathered the broken wood always to be found in juxtaposition with river-banks—wrecked canoes, cast down the stream; riven branches scattered by the whirlwind; and torches left by the women in their wanderings and toils. She had secured the dry pieces reserved for kindling, and she was skilled in the Indian method of producing a blaze by rubbing two sections of dry wood together.