A cloud settled upon the smiling face of the Indian, and he broke forth vehemently, "I no want you to help me. I need _all_ that money; you got plenty. I been sick, had sick boy, sick old woman,--bery sick. I see that fox two time. No got gun; borrow money on him to pay doctor, and get blead. I borrow gun one day; sit all day, no get nothing; go home, nothing to eat. Next day, man use his own gun, kill plenty. I know fox in wet day find hollow tlee; no like to wet his tail. I say to-day I kill him, get good gun, get cloes, get plenty blead and tee. I _know_ I kill that fox."
"Well, Peter, we won't trouble you. We'll go to see you kill him, and watch out to see that he don't get clear," said Davies; and the Indian, rather hesitatingly, assented.
There was little woodcraft in following the "sign," for the tracks were deeply impressed in the soft snow, and the heavy body and long neck of his prey had left numerous impressions where the fox had rested for a moment. In the course of half an hour the party had gained the shore, and, passing through several fields, found themselves in a heavy growth of beech and maple.
The fox, however, had not halted here, but emerging into a small meadow, had crossed into a close copse of young firs and elders, in whose midst a huge stump, whitened and splintered, rose some twenty-five feet into the air.
Peter groaned audibly. "That old fox mean as debbil. Know that place no good. No hollow tlee, only brush and thick branch. Fox get under loot, and eat, watch twenty way at once: well, I try, any way."
Ben and La Salle hastily passed around the woods surrounding the glade, until they reached the opposite side of the motte to that which Peter was now entering. Noticing that only a narrow space of open ground intervened at one point, Davies crept noiselessly down to the very edge of the underbrush, about sixty yards from La Salle.
He had scarcely drawn himself up from his crouching position, when a magnificent black fox crossed the opening almost at his very feet, followed by the light axe of the Indian, which, thrown with astonishing force and precision, passed just above the animal, and was buried almost to the helve in a small tree not a yard from Davies's head.