Nuck leaned over and placed his finger on his lips, shaking his head warningly. Then he slid down the remainder of the way, falling in a heap on the carcass of the second bear. “Quick!” he gasped, seizing his shoes and stockings. “They’re coming.”
“What’s coming?”
“The Yorkers. I seen ’em on the river. Two canoes full.”
“Simon Halpen!” exclaimed the younger boy, his face blanching.
“I don’t know. Couldn’t tell any of ’em so far away. But they be’n’t Bennington men, that’s sure.” Nuck was hastily pulling on his stockings. “You run back and tell mother. I’ll watch ’em till they land and see what they intend to do.”
“But the bears—” began Bryce.
“We’ll have to leave ’em. That one in the tree will be all right for a while for sure. Now hurry.”
Bryce obeyed at once and a moment later the elder boy started off in the other direction for the bank of the creek. He ran carefully, however, so as not to make any noise and thus warn the canoe party of his presence. In half an hour he was abreast of the boats, for they progressed but slowly up the stream. Here he had a good view of the men. In the first canoe he saw Crow Wing and another young Indian of his tribe, while the paddlers in the second were likewise Iroquois. The white men were Yorkers he was sure, and all were heavily armed.
As he scrutinized the whites his eyes rested finally on one man in the leading canoe whom he was sure he had seen before. He could not mistake that lean, dark face and hooked nose. Whether or not it was the person he had seen in the wood the day of Sheriff Ten Eyck’s fiasco at the Breckenridge farm, he was certain of the man’s identity. It was Simon Halpen who, under a New York patent, claimed territory on the Walloomscoik, a part of which the Harding farm was.
Dodging from tree to tree, the boy followed the canoes and finally, before they came in sight of the Harding house, saw the party land. The Indians remained with the canoes; but the white men disembarked with considerable baggage. One of the men carried a surveyor’s instrument, while a second bore a chain. Halpen led them and when he had seen the party strike into the forest in the direction of the house, Enoch sped away on a parallel trail and headed them off, arriving first at the destination.