“Blaise, I’m going up through the woods to find some spot where I can see out. Then if anyone comes near our barrier I shall know it.”
The half-breed boy had opened his eyes at the first word. “We must take great care,” he replied in the softest of whispers. “The cracking of a twig, the moving of a bush may betray us. Yet I am ready to take the risk if you are.”
“We’ll both go then, and we’ll not take more risk than we can help.”
Blaise nodded and rose. Slipping into the woods just beyond where the boat lay, he threaded his way among trees and bushes. Hugh followed quite as cautiously. It was but a short distance, and after a few steps Blaise dropped to his hands and knees. Hugh followed his example, and remained motionless while the other crept ahead and disappeared behind a clump of balsams.
The older boy waited several minutes, then ventured forward. Beyond the balsams he paused, but could catch no glimpse of Blaise among the dense growth. The sunlight between the trees ahead showed him that he must be close to the margin of the woods. Lying almost flat, he wriggled along until he could see a patch of water. For a moment he lay still, looking and listening. Then he crept forward again and took his station behind a thick mass of cedar needles. In its youth this cedar had been bent almost double by some weight, a fallen tree probably, and had grown in that misshapen form, branching and leafing out in dense sprays clear to the ground. Peeping around the green screen, Hugh found he was but a few feet from the edge of the water. The sheltered bay was without a ripple, the sun hot, the woods still, the silence unbroken by even the twitter of a bird or the hum of an insect.
The boy was about to raise himself for a better view, when, from the water, a sound came to his ears. The very slightest of sounds it was, but he lowered his head instantly. He wriggled a little farther back behind the cedar masses and lay motionless. The sound came again, the slightest suggestion of rippling water. But the bay was smooth and still. What he heard was the dipping of a paddle blade, the ripple of water against the side of a boat.
For a few moments Hugh dared not try to look. Then curiosity got the better of fear. Raising his head ever so little, he found a peep-hole between the cedar sprays and put his eye to it. He could see a bit of the round, wooded islet, a section of the shore opposite and, on the water between, a birch canoe. It held three men. The bow-man was the tall young Iroquois who had first taken Hugh prisoner. The man in the middle wore a red band about his long black hair. As the canoe came nearer, Hugh could see that the steersman was the squat Ojibwa from whose custody he had escaped. Ohrante had not killed the guard then, but no doubt some heavy punishment hung over Monga’s head if he did not find Hugh and bring him back. He was desperate enough to dare return to the dreaded Bay of Manitos.
The canoe came slowly, the man in the bow watching the water. It was shallow between the round islet and the blocked entrance to the little pond. Would the fallen cedar deceive the Indians or not? Hugh held his breath.
The bow-man straightened a little, glanced towards the cedar, then looked back at the water again. Red Band’s eyes were on his paddle. Monga’s head turned from side to side, as he scanned the shore and the woods for any sign that the fugitive had been there. His glance swept the barrier. He twisted his paddle. The canoe swerved nearer to the blocked passage.
The man in the bow uttered a sharp hiss of warning. For an instant Hugh feared that the fellow had caught sight of him through the leafy screen. But the warning was of shallows ahead. The steersman dipped his paddle and swerved the canoe again, this time away from the fallen cedar. He did not cast another glance in that direction, as the canoe came on past the barrier. The “tide,” as Hugh had called it, was out. The water was at its lowest point of fluctuation. No one could suspect a navigable channel where the uprooted tree lay.