After gaining the top Hugh was in a quandary how to proceed. He did not believe the man’s intentions were friendly. Would it be wise to strike first? At the thought, his hand, almost unconsciously, sought his knife. Before he could grasp the handle, the Indian made a swift movement, and the end of the musket barrel rested against Hugh’s chest. The flint-lock musket was primed and cocked, ready to fire. Resistance was useless. Hugh stood motionless, looked the fellow in the eye and feigned anger.

“What do you mean?” he cried, trying to make his meaning plain by his voice and manner even though his captor could not understand the words. “What do you mean by threatening me, a white man, with your musket?”

The gun was moved back a trifle, but the bronze face continued to grin maliciously. To show that he was not afraid, Hugh took a step forward, and opened his mouth to speak again, but the words were not uttered. As his weight shifted to his forward foot, he was seized from behind, and thrown sidewise, his head crashing against the trunk of a tree.

XXII
BLAISE FOLLOWS HUGH’S TRAIL

Blaise had no difficulty finding the place where Hugh had gone into the woods. The white boy thought he had been careful about leaving a trail, but to the half-breed lad the indications were plain enough. Most of the tracks were such as might have been made by any large animal, but Blaise knew Hugh had landed at this spot intending to go directly to the ridge top. The younger boy was confident that trampled undergrowth, prints in the leaf mould, freshly broken branches, were all signs of his brother’s passage.

At first he followed the trail easily, but the long northern twilight was waning. As the darkness gathered in the woods, tracking grew increasingly difficult. Blaise had no wish to attract attention by lighting a torch. As he penetrated the thick growth, he was not only unable to find Hugh’s trail, but was obliged sometimes to feel his own way and was in grave doubt whether he was going aright. Coming out into a more open spot, where several trees had fallen, he examined, as well as he could in the dim light, the moss-covered trunks for some sign that Hugh had climbed over them. A fresh break where the decayed wood had crumbled away under foot, a patch of bruised moss, the delicate fruiting stalks broken and crushed, were enough to convince him that he was still on the right track.

Alternately losing the trail and finding it again, he came to the summit of the ridge. Crossing the top, he found himself on the rim of the cliff, but not in the same spot where his brother had come out. He had missed Hugh’s trail on the last upward slope, and was now a hundred feet or more to the left of the projecting block of rock. For a few minutes Blaise stood looking about him. He glanced out over the water, noting that the sky was partly cloud covered. He could make out the low point, and he realized that the rock shore with the fissures must lie almost directly below him. The twin coves, where he and Hugh had camped, could not be far to the left. Blaise was not concerned just now with either place, he was merely obeying the Indian instinct to note his whereabouts and to take his bearings.

The lad was at a loss how to proceed. That Hugh had reached the rim of the ridge somewhere along here seemed more than probable. Where had he gone then? Blaise could scarcely believe that his elder brother had attempted to climb down that abrupt descent. If he had gone down there and through the woods and over the rocks to the water, he could have got no better view of the open lake,—and Hugh had been in haste. No, he had certainly not gone down there of his own accord. If he had started back the way he had come, what had happened to him? Blaise shook his head in perplexity. Of only one thing was he sure. Some disaster had overtaken Hugh. Had he made a misstep and plunged down the cliff, or had Ohrante something to do with his disappearance?

The first thing to do, Blaise decided, was to search along the ridge top for some further sign of Hugh or of what had befallen him. He turned to the right and made his way along as close to the edge as he could, stooping down every few paces to seek for some clue. The night was lighter now, for the moon had come out from behind the clouds. When he reached the spot just above the projecting rocks, Blaise stopped still. There was no need to search for signs here, they were quite plain. The moon shone down on the little open space where Hugh and the strange Indian had confronted one another. It was clear to the half-breed boy that there had been a struggle. The gray caribou moss was crushed and trampled and torn up by the roots. A branch of a little jackpine on the edge of the opening showed a fresh break and hanging from that branch was a torn scrap of deerskin. But that was not all. Lying on the moss, in plain sight in the moonlight, was a small, dark object, a bit of steel such as was commonly used with a piece of flint for fire making. Blaise picked up the steel. It was the one Hugh carried, beyond doubt.

What did those marks of struggle mean? They were too far back to indicate that Hugh had lost his footing and slipped over the edge, seizing the tree to keep himself from falling. No, that was quite impossible, for the jackpine grew at least ten feet from the rim of the cliff. Had Hugh fought with some animal? Blaise knew of no animal likely, at that season of the year, to make an unprovoked attack upon a man. He felt sure that Hugh had too much sense to strike first with knife or hatchet at a bear or moose. Moreover if an animal had slain him it would scarcely have carried him away. Every indication pointed to an encounter, not with a beast, but with a man. Hugh must have come across Ohrante or some of his followers. Had they killed him or taken him prisoner? If they had killed him they would not have troubled to take away his body. They would have taken his scalp and gone on their way,—unless of course they had thrown him over the cliff. Blaise looked down the abrupt descent, now bathed in moonlight. Should he seek down there for Hugh or in some other direction? He decided to look around a little more before attempting to climb down.