"You know me, Paul Cotter," said Wyatt, who recognized the voice, "and you know I keep my word. Now, we have you fellows shut up there. All we've got to do is to wait until your food gives out, which'll be very soon, and then you'll drop into our hands like an apple from a tree."
"Oh, no," said Paul airily. "We've always had this place in mind for some such use as the present, and from time to time we've been stocking it up with food. We could live here a year in comfort. Long Jim is cooking deer steaks now, and the smoke is going out through a hole, which leads clear through the hill. If you'll go around to the other side, about a mile from here, you'll see the smoke."
Paul merely followed the Indian fashion of taunting one's enemies. He believed that in the forest it was best to follow its ways.
"Aren't you going, Braxton?" he called. "Long Jim is letting the fire die down and if you don't hurry around there you won't see the smoke."
"You think you're smart, Paul Cotter," Braxton Wyatt called back in anger. "You've read too many books. Drop your high and mighty ways and come down to facts."
"Well, what do you want? You're in our front yard and we have the right to shoot you, but we won't do it until you tell what you're doing there."
"As I said, we've got you shut up. We're sure that you haven't food for more than two or three days. Surrender and we'll spare your lives and take you as prisoners to the British at Detroit—that is, all except Henry Ware."
"And why except Henry?"
"He has done so much against the warriors that I don't think we could induce them to spare him."
"But what makes you think he's here?"