I heard the Mohican's low laughter.
"The Senecas will see it and destroy it. But it will drive them frantic," he said.
"Whatever they do to this tree will but mark the ford more plainly," said I.
And the Mohican laughed and laughed and patted my shoulder, as we moved fast on our back trail. I think he was excited, veteran though he was, at his taking of a Seneca warrior's scalp. "Had you not jerked him under water when he leaned forward over your shoulder to see what manner of man was speaking English," said I, "doubtless he had awakened the forest with his warning yell in another moment."
"Let him yell at the fishes, now," said the Mohican, laughing. "No doubt the eels will understand him; they are no more slippery than he."
Save for the vague forms of the trees dimly discerned against the water, the darkness was impenetrable; and except for these guides, even an Indian could scarcely have moved at all. We followed the bank, keeping just within the shadows; and I was ever scanning the spots of starlit water for that same canoe which I had learned was to go upstream to watch us.
Presently the Siwanois checked me and whispered:
"Yonder squats your Wyandotte sentinel."
"Where? I can not see him."
"On that flat rock by the deep water, seeming a part of it."