“It was your imagination that got away with you,” said Ree, smiling. “If a chap just imagines that some one is watching him, waiting to shoot or grab him, he can scare himself worse than he would be if he really saw some one just ready to jump onto him.”
The conversation turned to other subjects then, the boys having agreed that as the wind and snow would by this time have covered up the tracks the prowler made, it would be of no use to try to find them and so determine who the fellow was. It was already dark, moreover, and so stormy a night that neither boy cared to leave the bright fireplace unless it were necessary.
Supper was over and Ree and John and Mr. Hatch, snug and comfortable, were discussing the situation of the Delawares when to their astonishment there came a knocking at the door. In all the time since the cabin was built no visitor had announced his presence in that way.
“Great guns! Who can it be?” murmured John, but Ree hastily arose to answer the call.
“Come in, come in,” came the latter’s voice cheerily, as the figure of a man crouching close to the wall, as if to escape the raw, cold wind, was revealed by the firelight when the door was opened.
Softly the person glided into the room and close to the fire, spreading out his hands to the welcome heat, but turning his face away as if the bright glare hurt his eyes. His dress and long black hair and tawny skin indicated that he was an Indian, probably of the Mohawk tribe—a Mingo, at least—but neither of the boys remembered having seen him before.
“It is a cold night,” said John, hospitably moving back from the fire to give the visitor more room.
“Ugh!”
The stranger uttered no other word, but, Indian fashion, shrugged his shoulders as if to answer that there was no doubt as to the truth of the remark.
“Have you traveled far?” John asked.