He looked at me rather sulkily, but began to smile directly, as he drew his keen-edged knife across the trunk of the great tree upon which he was going to operate before. Then, making a parallel incision close to the first, he produced a white streak where he removed the bark.
“Well,” I said, “that’s as bad as anything.”
“No, it ain’t: wait a bit,” he said; and carving away at the thick bark, he made four deep incisions at one end so as to form an arrow-head, and eight at the other end for the feathering of the arrow, so that when he had ended there was a rough white arrow on the red bark pointing down the river, and of course in the direction of the Fort.
“There!” he said, triumphantly. “No brave will think that means gold in the stream, will he?”
I confessed that it was most unlikely, and we started off home.
“Wouldn’t old Quong like to know of that?” I said.
“Yes; he’d give something—half of what he found I dare say,” cried Esau; “but he isn’t going to know, nor anybody else, from me.”