“God help the frontiers, then.”
“Yes, yes.”
“But I must go back,” said the trapper; “nobody is at home but Yellow Dick. I guess we’ll not go to the block-house till to-morrow night. I think we’re safe in keeping aloof till then; ’tis best, you know, to seem in ignorance of the threatening danger.”
“I think so too, Belt. You’ll come over to-morrow evening, ready for the run?”
“I’ll be here, and then”—with a glance at Levi that told much—“we’ll shelter our heads beneath Strong’s roof.”
Several minutes later Wolf-Cap was returning to his cabin, and at length the grayish dawn of day revealed it to him.
“Nobody has disturbed Dick,” he said, after inspecting the little structure’s surroundings. “He’s a good housekeeper—no woman in this land kin beat him, but— What’s that? By Huron! somebody hes nailed a piece of paper to my door.”
The trapper was walking forward while speaking, and it was a piece of paper on his cabin door that called the exclamation to his lips. With his eyes fastened upon the object, he quickened his steps, and presently paused on the flagstone stoop.
Before his eyes was a piece of dingy paper, bordered with blood, and held in its place by a knife, the point of which was buried deeply in the firm wood!
The uncouth letters had been traced on the dirty sheet with a stick dipped in gore, and were arranged in the following order: