“Wolf don't touch him—wolf CAN'T touch him. Moccasin been under tree. See him mark. Bess do as I tell you; go home, soon as ever can. Short path to Detroit; an't two hundred pale-face mile.”
“I see how it is, Pigeonswing; I see how it is, and thank you for this hint, while I honor your good faith to your own people. But I cannot go to Detroit, in the first place, for that town and fort have fallen into the hands of the British. It might be possible for a canoe to get past in the night, and to work its way through into Lake Erie, but I cannot quit my friends. If you can put us ALL in the way of getting away from this spot, I shall be ready to enter into the scheme. Why can't we all get into the canoe, and go down stream, as soon as another night sets in? Before morning we could be twenty miles on our road.”
“No do any good,” returned Pigeonswing, coldly. “If can't go alone, can't go at all. Squaw no keep up when so many be on trail. No good to try canoe. Catch you in two days—p'raps one. Well, I go to sleep—can't keep eye open all night.”
Hereupon, Pigeonswing coolly repaired to his skins, lay down, and was soon fast asleep. The bee-hunter was fain to do the same, the night being now far advanced; but he lay awake a long time, thinking of the hint he had received, and pondering on the nature of the danger which menaced the security of the family. At length, sleep asserted its power over even him, and the place lay in the deep stillness of night.
CHAPTER XIX.
And stretching out, on either hand,
O'er all that wide and unshorn land,
Till weary of its gorgeousness,
The aching and the dazzled eye
Rests, gladdened, on the calm, blue sky.
—WHITTIER.
No other disturbance occurred in the course of the night. With the dawn, le Bourdon was again stirring; and as he left the palisades to repair to the run, in order to make his ablutions, he saw Peter returning to Castle Meal. The two met; but no allusion was made to the manner in which the night had passed. The chief paid his salutations courteously; and, instead of repairing to his skins, he joined le Bourdon, seemingly as little inclined to seek for rest, as if just arisen from his lair. When the bee-hunter left the spring, this mysterious Indian, for the first time, spoke of business.
“My brother wanted to-day to show Injin how to find honey,” said Peter, as he and Bourdon walked toward the palisades, within which the whole family was now moving. “I nebber see honey find, myself, ole as I be.”