“Father! is that smoke risin’ over the bluff yonder?” asked Roy, pointing with his finger as he spoke.
“No doubt of it, lad.”
“Indians, may be,” said Walter.
Robin shook his head. “Don’t think so,” said he, “for the redskins don’t often come to see me at this time o’ the year. But we’ll go see; an’ look to your primin’, lads—if it’s a war-party we’ll ha’ to fight, mayhap, if we don’t run.”
The three hunters crossed the plain in the teeth of the howling drift, and cautiously approached the bluff referred to by Roy, and from behind which the smoke ascended.
“It’s a camp fire,” whispered Robin, as he glanced back at his companions, “but I see no one there. They must have just left the place.”
There was a shade of anxiety in the hunter’s voice as he spoke, for he thought of Fort Enterprise, its defenceless condition, and the possibility of the Indians having gone thither.
“They can’t have gone to the Fort,” said Walter, “else we should have seen their tracks on the way hither.”
“Come,” said Robin, stepping forward quickly, “we can see their tracks now, anyhow, and follow them up, and if they lead to the Fort.”
The hunter did not finish his sentence, for at that moment he caught sight of the recumbent form of Wapaw in the camp.