"What?" demanded the other, as he prepared to jump to the ground, holding the feathered missile carefully in one hand.
"Why," said Sandy, eagerly, "something seemed to arouse me just about daybreak. It sounded like a stone thrown against the house. But I thought father was up, and getting the fire ready, so mother could cook breakfast; and I went to sleep again. Bob, that must have been the time the arrow dropped on the roof!"
"Yes, that was the time," answered Bob; "for the one who held the bow could never have seen how to aim in the night, even though there was a moon."
"Aim, do you say, brother? Is it possible then he meant to stick that arrow in our roof rather than any other?" demanded Sandy, startled.
"I surely do believe it. See, here is a message fastened to the shaft by little threads drawn from the fibre of cane!" and Bob held up the piece of birch bark, which Sandy now saw contained various rude designs possibly drawn with a sharp-pointed eagle quill, dipped in the juice of the poke berry.
"Blue Jacket!" he exclaimed involuntarily, for suddenly he remembered that other unique message which the young Shawanee warrior had left, at the time he had slipped away from the cabin of the Armstrongs.
"Yes, that is the plainest thing of all," remarked Bob, "for you see here at the end there is what is meant to be the figure of a man, an Indian, too, for he has feathers in his hair; and his jacket is daubed with a blue stain. But what puzzles me is to read these signs. Come, sit down here. Perhaps two heads may prove better than one, and you are quick at such things."
"Oh! if only Pat O'Mara were here now, how quickly he would read it all," said Sandy, screwing up his forehead as he scanned the several lines of strange figures.
"This must mean the sun, all right," remarked Bob, pointing to the first rude representation in the line.