By good luck, he was not touched. He sprang behind the tree, guessing at once who had fired that shot.
“Don’t shoot, Charlie!” he yelled. “It’s me. It’s Tom.”
Dead silence followed. Nothing seemed to stir in the undergrowth. Tom began to imagine that perhaps it was not Charlie who had fired. It might have been McLeod, come up from the lake to ambush him again. He listened and looked more keenly, but heard nothing, till a voice spoke quietly, almost at his elbow.
“You get back, Tom? You fin’ your cousin?”
Tom was so startled that he jumped. The Ojibway had crawled like a serpent through the brush to get a close look at the intruder before he spoke.
“Gracious, Charlie!” he exclaimed. “Is that you?”
The young Indian came out into the moonlight and surveyed Tom carefully.
“You come—camp this way,” he announced, and, turning, he started off through the woods.
Within a hundred yards or so Tom perceived the glimmer of a very small fire, almost hidden between two rocks. Charlie put on a few fresh sticks, and placed the kettle, and produced a lump of bacon.
“You eat,” he observed. “I wait for you long time. Other man come—git timber, like you say. I lay for ’em—shoot their camp—no good. I hope you come back. I hear noise down by lake to-night—then I hear you come. T’ink you somebody else—shoot you, pretty near.”