“What, would you set fire to the forest?” laughed Rory.
“No, Mr Greenhorn,” said Allan, “only chip a bit of bark here and there off the trees’ stems to prevent us from going round in a circle.”
“Well,” said Rory, “you know how the thing is done, I don’t.”
The night wore on; it was very quiet in that gloomy pine-wood. The moon rose slowly over the horizon, but her beams could hardly penetrate the thick branches of the spruce firs. The fire burnt low, only starting occasionally into a fitful blaze; the two friends from talking fell to nodding, then their weary heads dropped on their arms, and they slept.
But is this forest quite so deserted as the two friends imagined? No; for behold that dark figure gliding swiftly from tree to tree through the chequered moonlight; and now the branches are pushed aside, and he stands erect before them. Tall he is, gaunt and ungainly, dressed from the crown of the head to his moccasined feet in skins, and armed with gun, dagger, and revolver. He stands for a moment in silence, then quite aloud, and with a strong Yankee nasal twang,—
“Well, I’m skivered!” he says.
Rory rose on his feet first, and had his rifle at the stranger’s neck in the twinkling of an eye.
“Who are you?” he cries. “Speak quick, or I fire!”
“Seth,” was the reply. “Now put aside that tool, or see if I don’t put a pill through you.”
“What seek you here?”