All his energy seemed to have returned in a moment, and it deserted him not again. He charged his rifle with wonderful rapidity, tossed it under his arm, and took a step as if to go. Then for a moment he paused, and advancing close to the dead Indian gazed at him sternly. "Oh, my enemy," he cried, "thou saidst thou wouldst have revenge, and thou hast had it--far more bitter than if thy hatchet had entered into my skull, and I were lying in thy place."

Turning round as soon as he had spoken, he led the way back along the trail, murmuring rather to himself than to his companions: "The instinct of self-preservation is very strong. Better for me had I let him slay me. I know not how I was fool enough to fire. Come, Walter, we must get round the falls, where we shall find some batteaux that will carry us down."

He walked along for some five minutes in silence, and suddenly looked round to Lord H----, exclaiming: "But what's to become of him? How is he to find his way back again? Come! I will go back with him--it matters not if they do catch me and scalp me. I do not like to be dogged and tracked and followed and taken unawares. I can but die at last. I will go back with him as soon as you are in the boat, Walter."

"No, no, Woodchuck! That will not do!" replied the lad. "You forget that if they found you with him they would kill him, too. I will tell you how we will manage it. Let him come down with us to the point, then there is a straight road up to the house, and we can get one of the batteaux men to go up with him and show him the way, unless he likes to go on with me to Albany."

"I cannot do that," replied Lord H----, "for I promised to be back at your father's house by to-morrow night, and matters of much importance may have to be decided. But I can easily land at the point, as you say--whatever point you may mean--and find my way back. As for myself, I have no fears. There seem to be but a few scattered parties of Indians of different tribes roaming about, and I trust that anything like general hostility is at an end for this year at least."

"In Indian warfare the danger is the greatest, I have heard, when it seems the least," replied Walter Prevost; "but from the point to the house, some fourteen or sixteen miles, the road is perfectly safe, for it is the only one on which large numbers of persons are passing to and from Albany."

"It will be safe enough," said Woodchuck; "that way is always quiet; and besides, a wise man and a powerful one could travel at any time from one end of the Long House to the other without risk--unless there were special cause. It is bad shooting we have had to-day, Walter, but still I should have liked to have the skin of that panther. He seemed to me an unextinguishable fine crittur."

"He was a fine creature, and that I know, for I shot him, Woodchuck," said Walter Prevost, with some pride in the achievement. "I wanted to send the skin to Otaitsa--but it cannot be helped."

"Let us go and get it now!" cried Woodchuck, with the ruling passion strong in death. "'Tis but a step back. Darn those Ingians! Why should I care?"

But both his companions urged him forward, and they continued their way through woods skirting the river for somewhat more than two miles, first rising gently to a spot where the roar of the waters was heard distinctly, and then, after descending, rising again to a rocky point midway between the highest ground and the water level, where a small congregation of huts had been gathered together, principally inhabited by boatmen, and surrounded by a stout palisade.