"How long must we wait here with these wretched youngsters?" said Pierre.
"It will take an hour or more for them to encircle the village; and that must be done before the attack is made."
"And we must lose it all! It's a shame. Well, they ought to give us a better chance when—" Here he dropped his voice so low that Noel could hear no more.
While Noel's ears had been busy, his fingers had not been idle. With the deftness and patience born of his forest training in Canada he had worked at the knots that bound him, and had at last succeeded, with the help of the darkness, in untying them. He lay just at the forest's edge, and it required only one sudden spring to carry him into the underbrush.
The leap had been a quick one, but Pierre's sharp eyes had seen the boy's first movement; and as Noel crashed into the bushes, the scout's knife—which he wore at his belt, and which he could throw as an Indian throws the tomahawk—glanced through the air, severing a twig close to the boy's cheek. Noel made two or three long leaps, then crouched down, and, feeling along the earth, found a heavy stick, and flung it crashing into the bushes at one side.
Pierre, leaving Antoine to guard the others, had sprung after Noel; he carried his rifle, which had lain by his side, wrapped in his jacket to protect it from the dew. It was very dark under the thick evergreens; and as Pierre, misled by the sound of the stick, went a few yards to one side, Noel rose and moved away, his moccasins making as little noise as do the furry feet of a Canada lynx creeping up to a moose. But even a lynx sometimes stirs a twig that rustles a dead leaf, and now this happened to Noel. Pierre's ears caught a slight sound; instantly he made out the crouching figure, and, throwing his rifle to his shoulder, fired. Thanks to the darkness, the bullet missed, but whizzed so close to the boy's head that the concussion almost stunned him. Yet he felt like shouting for joy, for the scout, his muzzle-loading rifle empty and his knife gone, was practically unarmed.
"Have you got him?" cried Antoine, from the open.
"Not yet," shouted back Pierre. "But I'll have him, alive or dead. He sha'n't get away!"
Noel, knowing that there was now neither knife nor bullet to follow him, had leaped forward, running like a deer. The scout sprang after him not twenty yards behind. The little forest creatures that run about at night—weasels and sables and hares—scrambled out of their way, and crouched down, wondering at them as they came dashing by.
The two were not unequally matched; for while the scout had the advantage in strength, Noel was the more agile. His small size was also of great advantage, as any one who has tried to run through the woods will understand. The low-growing branches of trees did not trouble the boy as they did the tall Pierre, who several times measured his length upon the ground.