"It is very precarious, dangerous, and probably will not succeed."
"Tell it us for all that," the monk pressed him.
"Yes, yes--speak father," Ellen urged him.
"Very well, then, listen to me attentively, for the means I am about to propose, strange as they may at first appear to you, offer a chance of success, which, in our desperate situation, must not be despised."
"Speak, pray speak!" the monk said impatiently.
"You are in a precious hurry," he said; "perhaps you will not be so presently."
"Before explaining my plan to you," Red Cedar went on, "I must tell you what our position really is, so that when I have described the means I wish to employ, you can decide with a full knowledge of the facts."
His hearers gave a nod of assent, but no one made an answer.
"We are surrounded on three sides: firstly, by the Comanches, next by Bloodson's rangers, and lastly by the French hunter and his friends. Weakened as we are by the terrible privations we have suffered since we came into the mountains, any contest is impossible; we must, therefore, give up all hope of opening a passage by force."
"What is to be done, then?" the monk asked; "it is plain that we must escape, and each second that slips away renders our prospects worse."
"I am as fully convinced of that as you can be. My absence today had a double object; the first was to obtain provisions, in which, as you see, I succeeded--"
"Secondly, to reconnoitre carefully the positions held by our enemies."
"I have succeeded. I advanced unnoticed close to their camps; they keep a good watch, and it would be madness to try and pass through them; they form a wide circle around us, of which we are the centre; this circle is being daily contracted, so that in two or three days, perhaps before, we shall find ourselves so pressed that it will be impossible to hide ourselves, and we must fall into their hands."
"Demonios!" Fray Ambrosio exclaimed, "that is anything but a pleasant prospect; we have no mercy to expect from these villains, who will, on the contrary, find a pleasure in torturing us in every way possible. Hum! the mere thought of falling into their hands makes my flesh creep; I know what the Indians are capable of in torturing, for I have seen them at work often enough."