Valentine stopped and collected his friends.
"Let us hold a council," he said.
"I think," Don Miguel observed, "that Red Cedar fancied he had been long enough up a tree, and so went back to the ground."
Valentine shook his head.
"You have not got it," he said, "what you assert, my friend, is materially impossible."
"Why so?"
"Because the trail, as you see, suddenly ceases over a lake."
"That is true."
"Hum! It is plain that Red Cedar did not swim across it. Let us go on at all hazards, I feel certain that we shall speedily recover the trail; that direction is the only one Red Cedar could have followed. His object is to cross the line of foes who surround him on all sides; if he buried himself in the mountains, we know by experience, and he knows as well as we do, he would infallibly perish; hence he can only escape in this way, and we must pursue him."
"Still remaining on the trees?" Don Miguel asked.