"How do you know?"
"More ashes, and on the ground covered by the tent. Evidently they have pipes of their own, as most all English officers do, and they wouldn't have sat here, and smoked, while on a hard march, if they did'nt have something important to talk about. I take it that the leaders of the Indian army are trying to solve some question. Perhaps they don't know which of the settlements to march against first."
"Over here is where they kept the horses fur the big guns," said Silent Tom. "Mebbe we might git at them horses, Henry."
"We might, but it wouldn't help us much. The warriors are so many that, although they don't like work, they could take turns at pulling 'em along with ropes. They could do that too, with the wagons that carry the ammunition for the cannon. Come on, boys. It don't pay us to linger over dead campfires. Here goes the trail which is as broad as a road."
He led the way, but stopped again in a few minutes.
"They had their troubles when they started the next morning," he said, as he pointed with a long forefinger.
They saw flowing directly across the road one of the innumerable creeks, swollen to a depth of about four feet by the rain, and with rather a swift current. Hundreds of footprints had been left in the soft soil near the stream, and they examined them carefully. In two places these traces were packed closely.
"About twenty warriors gathered at each of these spots," said Henry, "and lifted the cannon into the wagons. Look how deep some of these footmarks are! That was when the weight of the cannon sank them down. The Indians could have gone across the creek without the slightest trouble, but the cannon and the wagons delayed them quite a while. Come, boys, we've got to do some wading ourselves."
Reaching the opposite bank they found where the cannon had been lifted out again, and saw the deep ruts made by their wheels running on through the forest.
"I don't find the traces of no boot heels," said Silent Tom. "What's become uv them English?"