Chapter Twenty.
More Surprising Discoveries.
While they were thus occupied, a cry was heard to ring through the forest. The Indian laid his hand on his gun, raised his head, which he turned to one side in a listening attitude, and sat as still as a dark statue. The only motion that could be detected in the man was a slight action in his distended nostrils as he breathed gently.
This attitude was but momentary, however, for the cry was repeated (“Hi! Nelly, hi!”) in clear silvery tones, and Wapaw smiled as he recognised Roy’s voice, and quietly resumed his former occupation.
Nelly bounded up at once, and ran out to receive her brother, and tell him of the arrival of their old friend.
She slipped on her snow-shoes, and went off in the direction of the cry. On rounding the foot of a cliff she discovered Roy, standing as if he had been petrified, with his eyes glaring at the snow with a mingled look of surprise and alarm.
Nelly’s step roused him.
“Ho! Nell,” he cried, giving vent to a deep sigh of relief, “I’m thankful to see you—but look here. What snow-shoe made this track? I came on it just this moment, and it pulled me up slick, I can tell ye.”
Nelly at once removed Roy’s alarm, and increased his surprise by telling him of the new arrival, who, she said, was friendly, but she did not tell him that he was an old friend.
“But come, now, what have you got for dinner, Roy?” said Nelly, with an arch smile, “for oh! I’m so hungry.”