"How do you know this?" I asked.
"I have both seen and heard. This den of ours opens on the river's edge, and, two days since, his Indians came within an ace of nabbing me. 'Twas just at dusk, and I made out to dodge them by doubling past in the canoe."
"But you say you have heard, as well?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Don't ask me, Jack."
I said I had no right to ask more than he chose to tell; and at this he blurted out an oath and let me have the sharp-edged truth.
"Falconnet has an ally whose wit is shrewder than his. Can you guess who it is?"
"No."
"'Tis this same Madge Stair you have been defending, Jack," he said, bitterly. "It seems that Falconnet made sure we had both gone to join the army, which was but natural. If she were less than the spiteful little Tory vixen that she is, she would have been content to let it rest so. But she would not let it rest so. With her own lips she assured Falconnet he still had us to reckon with; nay, more—she made a boast of it that we would never go so far away from her."