"If your murderous impulse has quite abated, sir, pray lend this gentleman your aid. We are seeking the cabin of a man called Red Hugh. Do you know where it is?"
From what Boone had told him, and from the appearance and manner of the stranger, Norton had a very shrewd suspicion that this was no other than Red Hugh himself. Leaning on his long rifle, the man surveyed the two friends critically.
"Well," he returned at length, "I may say yes to that question, sir. But I will barter my information for yours. You, sir"—and he bent his sunken grey eyes on Norton—"are wearing a pair of Shawnee moccasins. As you probably know, the beads and quill-work on those moccasins are peculiar. In fact, there is only one man besides yourself in the Northwest who wears such moccasins, and he is an Indian—the only Indian I have ever held under my rifle and spared. Where did you get them?"
Norton sat up, fighting off the dizzy weakness that all but mastered him. The man's words sent eager curiosity through him.
"I had them from an Indian," he returned quickly, and gave a brief account of the two he had encountered. Before he finished, a fresh spasm of nausea overwhelmed him, and he sank back in Audubon's arms.
"Enough of this talk," cried the naturalist angrily. "If you will guide us to this Red Hugh, sir, pray do so at once. We come to him from Colonel Boone——"
"If you had said that before, you would have bettered matters," broke in the tall stranger. "I am he whom you seek. Come."
Norton had lost all interest in the proceedings, for he could no longer fight off the fever. Between them the other two got him to his feet and half-carried him along a faint trail indicated by Red Hugh. After what seemed centuries to the reeling Norton, they came to a cabin, and he dimly felt himself carried inside. He knew little of what happened next, save that he drank a bitter draught and fell asleep.
When he wakened, he stared around him with wondering eyes, trying to place himself. He tried to move, and found himself too weak to raise his arm; yet the terrible sickness had passed.
He was lying on a couch of skins, and by the deepness of the sun outside he guessed it was mid-afternoon. The cabin was a bare place enough save for the furs heaped around the floor, but directly opposite him, beside the hearth, was a strange contrivance made of a stretched elkskin almost covering the side wall. From where he lay he could see a row of words across the top of the big skin, clearly done in red paint as if with a brush: