“Pepé,” whispered Bois-Rose, pointing to a tuft of osiers, “does it not seem to you that that bush has changed its form and grown larger?”
“Yes; it has changed its form!”
“See, Fabian! you have the piercing sight that I had at your age; does it not appear to you that at the left-hand side of that tuft of osiers the leaves no longer look natural?”
The young man pushed the reeds on one side, and gazed for a while attentively.
“I could swear it,” said he, “but—” He stopped, and looked in another direction.
“Well! do you see anything?”
“I see, between that willow and the aspen, about ten feet from the tuft of osiers, a bush which certainly was not there just now.”
“Ah! see what it is to live far from towns;—the least points of the landscape fix themselves in the memory, and become precious indications. You are born to live the life of a hunter, Fabian!”
Pepé levelled his rifle at the bush indicated by Fabian.
“Pepé understands it at once,” said Bois-Rose; “he knows, like me, that the Indians have employed their time in cutting down branches to form a temporary shelter; but I think two of us at least may teach them a few stratagems that they do not yet know. Leave that bush to Fabian, it will be an easy mark for him; fire at the branches whose leaves are beginning to wither—there is an Indian behind them. Fire in the centre, Fabian!”