"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."
"If my father still searches for me," said Patricia in a low voice, "may it not be his party that we hear? There may be a stream there. They may make canoes."
"With all my heart I pray that it be so, madam," said Landless. "But we will soon know. See, Monakatocka has gone on ahead."
She did not answer, and they walked on through the gloom of the defile. Presently their path became rough and broken, blocked with large stones and heavily shadowed by cedars projecting from the rocks above and draped with vines. He held out his hands and she took them, and he helped her across the rough places. He felt her hands tremble in his, and he thought it was with the ecstasy of the hope which inspired her.