“No! I go to the fort, Silver Hand. Seek the black cave. I’ll meet you there at dawn. Quick! They come.”
He spoke in the Wyandot tongue, and the next instant bounded toward the fort. He glided rapidly through the gloom, avoiding the numerous stumps, and yells on the river-bank told him that the deed just enacted there had been discovered.
But he ran on, unarmed, save with a knife, which Silver Hand had thrust into his grip, and he struck the ponderous gate of the palisade twice with the bony hilt.
“Guard! guard!” he shouted, and then he heard the sentry speak to some one beyond the pickets.
“Listen! I know that voice.”
“’Tis me—Wolf-Cap,” called the trapper quickly upon the guard’s words. “I don’t want to get in. Captain Strong is a traitor; he has promised to betray you into the hands of the Indians!”
A moment of silence followed. The trapper had paused for breath.
“Your roof is on fire. Put it out, and see to the traitor. Hold out like men. You’ll get help from outside by-and-by.”
Then Wolf-Cap turned from the gate and started toward the river.
The darkness favored his flight. As yet no attack had been made upon the fort from the stream. The major portion of the besiegers were on the hill, the summit of which was on a level with the embrasures, into which the foe could shoot with effect.