"Shall we go on?" demanded Landless, and the Indian nodded.
It was late afternoon, and the hills which closed in behind them as the gorge writhed to left and right hid the sun. Great trees, too, pine and chestnut, walnut and oak, leaned towards each other from the opposing banks, and together with the overhanging rocks, mantled with fern, made a twilight of the pass beneath. Here and there the silver stem of a birch stood up tall and straight, and looked a ghostly sentinel. "Do you hear it still?" demanded Landless when they had gone some distance in dead silence.
"Yes."
"And still in front of us?"
"Yes."
"Ah, what can it be?" cried Patricia, turning her white face upon Landless.
A cold wind, blowing from open spaces beyond, rushed up the ravine. "I hear a very faint sound," said Landless, "like the tapping of a woodpecker in the heart of the forest."
"It is the sound of the axe of the white man," said the Indian. "Some one is cutting down a tree."
"There can be no ranger or pioneer within many leagues of us!" exclaimed Landless. "No white man hath ever come so far. It must be an Indian!"
The Susquehannock shook his head. "Why should an Indian cut down a tree? We kill them and let them stand until they are bare and white like the bones of a man when the wolves have finished with him, and they fall of themselves."