"What is the opinion of the Loup, O Sagamore?" he asked lightly.
"Does my brother the Black-Snake desire to know the Sagamore's opinion concerning the cawing of yonder crows?"
The Wyandotte inclined his ugly head.
"I think," said the Mohican deliberately, "that there may be a tree-cat in their vicinity."
A dead silence followed. The Wyandotte's countenance was still smiling, but I thought the smile had stiffened and become fixed, though not a tremour moved him. Yet, what the Mohican had said—always with two meanings, and one quite natural and innocent—meant, if taken in its sinister sense, that not only might there be Senecas lying in ambush at the ford, but also emissaries from the Red Priest Amochol himself. For the forest lynx, or tree-cat, was the emblem of these people; and every Indian present knew it.
Still, also, every man there had seen crows gather around and scold a lynx lying flattened out on some arching limb.
Whether now there was any particular suspicion of this Wyandotte among the other Indians; whether it was merely their unquenchable and native distrust of any Huron whatever; whether the subtle chaff were playful or partly serious, I could not determine from their manner or expression. All spoke pleasantly and quietly, and with open or expressionless countenances. And the Wyandotte still smiled, although what was going on under that urbane mask of his I had no notion whatsoever.
I turned cautiously, and looked behind us. We were gathered in a kind of natural and moss-grown rocky pulpit, some thirty feet above the stream, and with an open view down its course to the distant riffles. Beyond them the river swung southward, walling our view with its flanking palisade of living green.
"We camp here," I said quietly. "No fire, of course. Two sentinels—the Night Hawk and the Black-Snake. The guard will be relieved every two hours. Wake me at the first change of watch."
I laid my watch on a rock where all could see it, and, opening my sack, fished out a bit of dried beef and a handful of parched corn.