"But it would have succeeded if Tayoga hadn't been awake," said the hunter. "One warrior could have knifed us all at his leisure."
"Where do you think they are now?"
"They must be crouched in the shelter of rocks. If they had nothing over them the storm would take the fighting spirit for the time out of savages, even wild for scalps. I'm mighty glad we have the canoe. It holds the food we need for a siege, and if the chance for escape comes it will bear us away. I think, Tayoga, I can see a figure stirring among the boulders on the other side farther up."
"I see two," said the Onondaga, "and doubtless there are others whom we cannot see. Keep close, my friends, I think they are going to fire."
A dozen rifles were discharged from a point about a hundred yards away, the exploding powder making red dots in the darkness, the bullets rattling on the stone cliff or sending up little spurts of water from the river. The volley was followed by a shrill, fierce war whoop, and then nothing was heard but the flowing of the river and the rushing of the rain.
"You are not touched?" said Tayoga, and Robert and Willet quickly answered in the negative.
"They don't know just which way to aim their guns," said Willet, "and so long as we keep quiet now they won't learn. That shout of yours, Tayoga, was not enough to tell them."
"But they must remember about where the hollow is, although they can't pull trigger directly upon it, owing to the darkness and storm," said Robert.
"That about sums it up, my boy," said the hunter. "If they do a lot of random firing the chances are about a hundred to one they won't hit us, and the Indians don't have enough ammunition to waste that way."
"I don't suppose we can launch the canoe and slip away in it?"