What more might have been said at that time no one can tell, for the conversation was cut short by a sound which caused both Indians to listen with intense earnestness. Their eyes glittered like the eyes of serpents, and their nostrils dilated like those of the wild-horse, while each man gently moved his right hand towards his weapon.
And if the too inquisitive reader should ask me how I could possibly come to know all this, seeing that I was not there at the time, I reply that the whole matter was related to me with minute and dramatic power by young Mozwa himself not long afterwards.
There was indeed ground for the excitement and earnest attention of those red-men, for the sweet and distant notes of a Canadian canoe-song had at that moment, for the first time, awakened the echoes of that part of the Great Nor’-west.
The two men were not indeed ignorant of the fact that such songs were sung by Canadian voyageurs—Maqua had even heard some of them hummed once by the men of Muskrat House, when, a good while before, he had paid a visit to that remote trading-post—but never before had father or son listened to the songs sung in full chorus as they now heard them.
Spell-bound they waited until the sound of oars mingled with the gradually strengthening song. Then their fingers closed convulsively upon their weapons and they sprang up.
“What does my son think?”
“He thinks that the white man may be on the war-path, and it behoves the red-man like the serpent to creep into the grass and lie still.”
The elder savage shook his head.
“No, Mozwa. The white man never goes on the war-path, except to track down murderers. When he goes through the land he travels as the red-man’s friend. Nevertheless, it is well to be on our guard.”
As he spoke, the song, which had been increasing in strength every moment, suddenly burst forth with great power in consequence of the boat which bore the singers rounding a rocky point and coming into full view.