"If you and I were in that canoe," the hunter answered, "that's about what we should do; but, not to say that it's a long row for 'em, they two young uns would never get across; the Injuns would have 'em before they had been gone an hour. There's my canoe lying under the bushes; she'd carry four, and would go three feet to their two."
"I had forgotten about that," William Welch said, and then added, after a pause: "The Indians may not find it."
"You needn't hope that," the hunter answered; "they have found it long before this. I don't want to put you out of heart; but I tell ye ye'll see them on the water before many minutes have passed."
"Then they are lost," Mrs. Welch said, sinking down in her chair and bursting into tears.
"They air in God's hands, ma'am," the hunter said, "and it's no use trying to deceive you."
"Would it be of any use," William Welch asked, after a pause, "for me to offer the redskins that my wife and I will go out and put ourselves in their hands if they will let the canoe go off without pursuit?"
"Not it," the hunter replied decidedly. "You would be throwing away your own lives without saving theirs, not to mention, although that doesn't matter a straw, the lives of the rest of us here. It will be as much as we can do, when they attack us in earnest, to hold this place with six guns, and with only four the chance would be worth nothing. But that's neither here nor there. You wouldn't save the young ones if you gave yourselves up. You can't trust the word of an Injun on the war-path, and if they went so far as not to kill 'em they would carry 'em off; and, after all, I aint sure as death aint better for 'em than to be brought up as Injuns. There," he said, stopping suddenly as a report of a musket sounded at some little distance off, "the Injuns are trying their range against 'em. Let's go up to the lookout."
The little tower had a thick parapet of logs some three feet high, and, crouching behind this, they watched the canoe. "He's coming nearer in shore, and the girl has got the paddle," Pearson muttered. "What's he doing now?" A puff of smoke was seen to rise near the border of the lake; then came the sharp crack of Harold's rifle. They saw an Indian spring from the bushes and fall dead.
"Well done, young un!" Pearson exclaimed. "I told yer he'd got his head screwed on the right way. He's keeping just out of range of their guns, and that piece of his can carry twice as far as theirs. I reckon he's thought of the canoe, and means to keep 'em from using it. I begins to think, Mr. Welch, that there's a chance for 'em yet. Now let's talk a little to these red devils in the corn."
For some little time Pearson and William Welch turned their attention to the Indians, while the mother sat with her eyes fixed upon the canoe.