“It is the habit of my people,” he answered. “We never can tell whether our foes may be before us or tracking our footsteps. I noticed that some one besides you and your young friend and the black has passed this way lately. He wore moccasins, and may therefore be a red man and an enemy; but I have just discovered that he is one of your people, and has a load on his shoulders. Observe that soft ground; his feet sank deeper into it than would have been the case had he been unencumbered. He is either an old man, or overcome with fatigue. He cannot be very far before us, and is going in the direction of your hut.” Kepenau pointed as he spoke to some mossy ground, where I could just distinguish a faint outline of the footsteps of a man; but I should have been unable to read anything beyond that fact from the marks left behind.
Quambo, who saw them, thought that they might have been, after all, only the footsteps of Uncle Mark or Mike, who might have come out thus far in search of game; but Kepenau laughed when this was said.
“No, no,” he answered; “these are moccasins. You will see that I am right.”
We hurried on, for the sun was getting low, and already the gloom had settled down in the recesses of the forest.
As we emerged into more open ground near the banks of the river, the rays of the sun glancing along it sparkled on the flakes of foam, as the stream hurried rippling along the banks. Nearing the hut, we caught sight of three figures standing in front of it.
“I told you so,” observed Kepenau. “Yonder is the man whose trail I discovered. A trapper, who has come east with his peltries. He is an old man, too, as I thought, and carried a heavy load.”
Before even our friends saw us, the canoe shot into view down the stream; and after helping Ashatea and Reuben to land—or rather the latter, for the Indian girl sprang lightly on shore without assistance—we proceeded to the hut.
Uncle Mark advanced to meet us. “All friends are welcome,” he said, taking Kepenau’s hand, and then greeting the young girl in his kind, friendly way. “You will, however, have to submit to pretty close stowage, if, as I hope you intend to do, you will remain the night with us.”
“We can quickly put up sufficient shelter for this time of the year for ourselves, so that we need not crowd you, my friend,” answered the Indian. “And our aged brother there, I doubt not, is as well accustomed to the open air as we are.”
“Many days and nights have passed since I slept under a roof,” observed the old hunter, who, hearing himself mentioned, now came forward. “We have met before, brother,” he added, looking at the Indian; “ay, and fought and hunted together! Don’t you recollect me?”