On, on, we went, traveling at the rate of no more than two miles an hour, because of being forced to move silently and at the same time carrying out the plan of learning if there might be enemies in the vicinity, and it was nearabout daybreak when, as I believed, we had been advancing for no less than three hours, our progress was checked as we came suddenly upon a party of savages, the greater number of whom were asleep.
It was accident, rather than wisdom, which prevented our tumbling directly in upon them, and thereby insuring our own captivity or death.
I was in the lead, as Paul had insisted should be the case, and my thoughts were occupied with speculations concerning Simon Kenton rather than the work which lay before me, when a noise as of some one snoring arrested my footsteps.
I had come to a halt within a dozen paces of the savages, and could see, where the underbrush was thinnest, the form of a feather-bedecked brute leaning against a tree evidently on guard.
A dozen steps more and we had been directly upon them.
Turning quickly, I clasped my hand over Paul's mouth, lest he should speak, although the lad had shown himself to be a better frontiersman than I, and this movement of mine told him of the danger so near at hand.
During twenty seconds, perhaps, we two stood peering into the gloom, able only to learn that there could not be less than twenty Indians here encamped, and then silently as shadows, for our lives depended upon the movement, we turned about, retracing our steps until thirty yards or more lay between us and the sleeping murderers.
Then I whispered in my comrade's ear:
"We must make a detour here lest those brutes come to know of our whereabouts, so keep well in mind the direction of the river."
"Do you count on going forward without learning if Simon Kenton may be among the savages?" he asked, and a flood of shame came over me as I thus realized that my own danger had caused me to forget the scout at a time when his possible fate should have been uppermost in mind.