It was Mike who brought all to a sudden stop by this information, sending them one and all to their knees, so as to make themselves less visible.
"Not as it aer likely as he could see us any more'n we could see him," said Hank. "Still, it aer always wise to take precautions. Now I guess there is jest one thing fer us to do. We want to strike right off into the forest and skirt round till we're closer to that 'ere hut. Of course, Hurley mayn't have stopped there; but then he may. Ef so, like as not he'll be watchin' the trace he's left, and ef we continued to follow it, he'd see us in half a jiffy."
"Then let's get moving," cried Mike impatiently. "I'm for taking Hurley the very first moment we can. But we shall have to rush him; he's not the sort of fellow to give in without a struggle, and he'll kick hard, you may say for certain."
"He's bound to put lead into someone or sommat," agreed Hank dryly. "We've got to get him cornered, and then attract his attention in one direction while some of us rushes him from the other. Now, boys."
"This way." Mike led the way beside the Indian, and once more the little quartet dived into the forest, where giants towered on either hand. Not that your wooded country in New Ontario can show such enormous trees as are to be found much farther west, on the far side of the Rocky Mountains, in British Columbia, to wit. For there a favourable climate and a wonderfully fertile soil has caused monsters to rear their heads to enormous heights, while the girth of some is stupendous. But New Ontario can show some arboreal development that is not to be despised, while in parts timber groups itself into great forests, some of which have perhaps never yet seen a white man, though the majority have by now witnessed the arrival of prospectors, and may even have echoed to the ring of the lumberman's axe.
Threading their way amongst the trees, and now and again having to clamber over some fallen giant—for here, on the edge of the lake, the trees were more exposed to winter winds, and some had suffered in consequence—Joe and his friends gradually worked their way along till opposite the part where the southern bank of the lake turned abruptly north. Following this new direction, and creeping with the utmost care through the undergrowth, it was some little while before they were within sight of the hut which they had viewed from their first position. It stood down by the water, thickly surrounded by undergrowth, though the trees which had at one time no doubt reared their heads there had been felled. It was just a small shack built of logs and roofed with strips of bark.
"Nigh falling to pieces too," whispered Hank, who had wonderful eyesight. "Guess a lumber gang was 'way up here some little time back, and that's where they worked and lived during the winter. The question now aer this. Where's Hurley? Ef he's hidin' there we have him. Ef he ain't, why, lookin' at the hut don't help us any, and merely lets him get farther off."
"We'll send Fox forward, then," answered Mike, his mouth close to Hank's head, "unless you think that you——"
"No, I don't say as I couldn't get there and back without even a Redskin hearin' or seein' me," said Hank; "but then I might fail. And it's jest sense ef you've got an Injun to make use of him. The critters is that cunning, they'd nigh creep into a house and be sittin' down beside you before a man was aware that they was there. They're the silentest and the most cunnin' fellers as ever I did set eyes on. Ef it wasn't that Hurley might be over yonder, I'd tell yer a yarn of how a Redskin crawled into my camp one night and as near killed me as possible. But send him off, while we lie down close."
Sinking their bodies in the undergrowth, they lay still for some twenty minutes, during which Fox was away from the spot. He went off towards the hut with merely a low grunt to show that he knew what was expected of him, and though Joe did his utmost to follow the man's track, there was never a sound, never a waving bramble to show where Fox had gone. Then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, our hero discovered the Indian crawling in behind him.