He approached the cabin until the owl suddenly vacated his perch, and hied away to the forest. Quickly but noiselessly, then, the trapper returned to his ally.
“Owl gone,” said Silver Hand, before the white man could find a tongue. “Who scared ’im?”
“That’s jest what I’m goin’ to tell you, chief. My cabin is inhabited. I know it, and somebody from the inside frightened that owl. I know that the bird didn’t leave of his own accord, and he didn’t see a mouse, either. Now, I’m going to find out who’s taken possession of the hut.”
Thereupon a series of snake-like movements were inaugurated by the couple, who succeeded in passing around the cabin without discovering a foe.
Whoever was in the hut kept very quiet, and the mystery deepened with each succeeding moment.
His dog’s silence increased Wolf-Cap’s suspicion of foul-play. Yellow Dick had always greeted his return with a peculiar cry; but now the death of silence reigned, and the trapper had touched the wall of his old home without eliciting any noise from the dog.
A second inspection of the clearing and adjacent forest followed the first, and then Wolf-Cap turned suddenly upon the Indian, with compressed lips.
“I won’t stand it any longer,” he said, sternly. “The rascal’s got to show himself now. Watch everywhere, chief, while I oust ’im. If I don’t do it, the Night-Hawks will.”
The last sentence was spoken in an undertone; and with a quantity of light brushwood the trapper moved toward the cabin.
By the help of steps cut in the logs he ascended to the roof, and deposited his burden between the dry clapboards. Then he sprinkled a quantity of powder among the combustible stuff, and ignited the whole with his flints.