“As you please,” answered the polite hunter. “I am ready either to sleep or to converse.”
“Then I will not tax your good-nature. We will seek repose. But what of our future movements? My sleep will be sounder if I could lie down with the assurance that you will continue to be our guide into the fertile interior of which you have said so much.”
“I will go with you,” returned Hendrick, after a few moments’ thought, “but I must ask you to spend a few days in my camp to rest yourselves, while I provide a supply of fresh meat and fish for my family; for, willing and able though Oscar is to provide for them, he is yet too young to have the duty laid upon his little shoulders.”
This having been satisfactorily settled, the captain and Paul wrapped themselves in deerskin blankets, and lay down with their feet to the fire.
Hendrick, having heaped a fresh supply of fuel on the embers, followed their example, and the camp was soon buried in profound silence.
Chapter Twelve.
A Surprise, a Fight, and a War Party.
At this point in our tale we might profitably turn aside for a little to dilate upon the interesting—not to say exciting—proceedings of our explorers and the hunter’s family during the few days spent in the island home and its neighbourhood, were it not that incidents of a more stirring and important nature claim our attention.