“They will say that it is Blackburn,” said Moale chuckling.
There was a silence.
“We mustn’t go too far,” said Gault. “Or we’ll be on top of the Slavi village.”
“What are you looking for?” asked Moale.
“A dead tree alongside the trail that we can pull over.”
For some reason these words struck a cold fear into Loseis’ breast. The riders passed out of earshot.
The trail wound in and out among the trunks as woodland trails do, and you could never see more than twenty-five yards or so ahead or behind. As soon as the men had gone, Loseis issued from her hiding-place, and started to follow on foot. She could still hear the murmur of their voices but not what they said. The leisureliness of their progress puzzled her. They were not going much further. What could they be up to? And the remaining Cree; what had become of him?
She heard them pass through the little stream that crossed the trail. A short distance beyond they stopped, apparently for the purpose of holding a consultation. Loseis approached as close as she dared, but could not make out their words. After awhile they left the trail. From the sounds that reached her, Loseis understood that they were leading their horses away amongst the trees. She went forward as far as the stream, and ascended the bed of it, thus keeping roughly parallel with the course they were taking.
For a couple of hundred yards back from the river, the forest was perfectly flat, and for the most part clear of undergrowth. The ground then rose steeply, and on the hillside young trees and bushes crowded up. The little stream came down through a ravine full of bowlders. Loseis, concentrating on the faculty of hearing, gathered that men and horses had made their way back to the foot of the rise, where they had gone into camp for a spell.
She climbed up the side of the ravine to a point well above their heads, and then edged cautiously around the hill until she was directly over the voices. Thereupon she began to let herself down softly, softly, an inch at a time, choosing every foothold with circumspection, snaking her body through the bushes with care not to create the slightest rustling. Loseis as a child had not played with the Slavi children for nothing.