"Yes. What of it?"
"Nothing only there's a camp o' British an' Injuns back there a little ways, an' if Bob don't look out he'll run right into it."
"A camp? Where?" asked Sam.
"Right in rear of us, not three hundred yards away."
"When was it established there?"
"To-night, just after you went away in the boat."
"All right," replied Sam. "Jump into the boat, Bob, and we'll sail down below and you can start from there."
It was easy enough to carry Bob and the deserter down to a point below the camp, but Sam was not at all pleased to find the British so near him. He feared already that he was suspected, and he was not sure that this placing of troops near him was not a preparation for something else. At all events, it was very embarrassing, for the reason that it would prevent him from withdrawing his party suddenly to the woods on their retreat, if anything should happen, and this made Sam uneasy. He returned to camp, after parting with Bob and the deserter, and sat for an hour revolving matters in his mind.
At first he was disposed to wake the boys and quietly withdraw by water to a point lower down, but upon reflection he was convinced that his removal by night immediately after the troops had been stationed near him, would only tend to excite suspicion. He thought, too, that he must have been wrong in supposing that the camp had been established in rear of him with any reference to him or his party.
"If they suspected us in the least, they would arrest us without waiting to make sure of their suspicions," he thought; nevertheless, it was awkward to be shut in and cut off from the easy retreat which he had planned, as a means of escape, in the event of necessity, and he determined to seek an excuse for removing within a day or two from his present camping place to one which would leave him freer in his movements. He was so troubled that he could not sleep, and the flickering blaze of the dying camp fire annoyed him. He got up, therefore, from his seat on a log and went to the boat and sat down in the stern sheets to think.