“Yes,” replied John, walking on before them.
Mary and Emma followed him, now and then stopping to pick a flower unknown to them: when they overtook John, he was standing immovable, pointing to a figure on the other side of the stream, as fixed and motionless as himself.
The two girls started back as they beheld a tall, gaunt man, dressed in deer-hides, who stood leaning upon a long gun with his eyes fixed upon them. His face was bronzed and weather-beaten—indeed so dark that it was difficult to say if he were of the Indian race or not.
“It must be the hunter, Emma,” said Mary Percival; “he is not dressed like the Indians we saw at Quebec.”
“It must be,” replied Emma; “won’t he speak?”
“We will wait and see,” replied Mary. They did wait for a minute or more, but the man neither spoke nor shifted his position.
“I will speak to him, Mary,” said Emma at last. “My good man, you are Malachi Bone, are you not?”
“That’s my name,” replied the hunter in a deep voice; “and who on earth are you, and what are you doing here? Is it a frolic from the fort, or what is it, that causes all this disturbance?”
“Disturbance!—why we don’t make a great deal of noise, no, it’s no frolic; we are come to settle here, and shall be your neighbours.”
“To settle here!—why, what on earth do you mean, young woman? Settle here!—not you, surely.”