We had forded West River, crept over the mountain's shoulder, recrossed the river roaring between its rounded and giant bowlders, and now were creeping southward toward the Big Eddy.
Already I saw ahead of me the brook that dashes into that great crystal-green pool, where, in happier days, I have angled for those huge trout that always lurk there.
And now I caught a glimpse of the pool itself, spreading out between forested shores. But the place was still as death; not a living thing nor any sign of one was to be seen there—not a trace of a fire, nor of any camp filth, nor a canoe, nor even a broken fern.
Moment after moment, I studied the place, shore and slope and hollow.
Tahioni, flat on his belly in the Great Trail, lay listening and looking up the slope, where our Saguenay had warned us Death lay waiting.
The Water-snake slowly shook his head and cast a glance of fierce suspicion at the Montagnais, who lay beside me, grasping his sorry trade-rifle, his slitted gaze of a snake fixed on the forest depths ahead.
Suddenly, Nick caught my arm in a nervous grasp, and "My God!" says he, "what is that in the tree—in the great hemlock yonder?"
And now we began to see their sharpshooters as we crawled forward, standing upright on limbs amid the foliage of great evergreens, to scan the trail ahead and the forest aisles below—these Mohawk panthers that would slay from above.
Under them, hidden close to the ground, lay their comrades on either side of the little ravine, through which the trail ran. We could not see them, but we never doubted they were there.