The Cree guide talked fairly good English, though with something of an effort. When indulging in any extended conversation with Francois, he invariably resorted to his native tongue.
Turning to Francois now, he rattled off a lot of talk that sounded almost like gibberish to the scouts, who waited for the voyageur to translate it.
"He says zat ze smoke tell heem most of ze men haf already started over to ze mine. Eet also say zat zey will have us all in ze trap soon," explained the French Canadian.
The boys looked at each other blankly.
"The dickens they do!" burst out Jimmy. "They'll have to get up right early in the morning to find us asleep. Say, he didn't tell what they expected to do when they sprung that fine trap, did he, Francois?"
"Nozzings, sare," responded the other, with a negative shake of his head. "I myself haf also read ze signs pret well, but zey do not tell vat it ees zey haf do to cage us. Zere, you see ze smoke ett haf done. I zink zey must be put ze fires out."
"That leaves us nearly as much in the air as before, don't it, Ned?" Jack complained.
"Only that we've learned the men are on the way across somewhere," Frank objected.
"And that they think they've got us up a tree, though we haven't the least notion what kind of tree," added Teddy, thoughtfully.
Ned looked serious, but if he had ideas of his own, he did not mention them just then. Perhaps he thought his chums had troubles enough as it was, without assuming any imaginary ones that might turn out to be false alarms.