He could just make out the dark, indistinct outline of the forest on the opposite bank, but no ripples or dark objects were visible. Then he looked down-stream, but nothing could he see.
"I must have been deceived. What a good thing I didn’t alarm the camp! How they would have laughed at me," he muttered.
Just then, however, he cast his eyes upstream. As he did so, he started again. A long, dark shadow, like a log or a canoe, half-way across, seemed to be drifting towards the northern shore on which they were camped. It was not more than two hundred yards away. It seemed to crawl along, then close behind it he saw a similar object, and still another.
What were the scouts doing? Had they been betrayed? What could they be, but canoes--Indians? Then the enemy must be crossing over, and he raised his voice for one mighty shout of--
But even as he uttered that startling cry the fierce howl of the coyote, repeated twice, the signal to alarm the camp, came from the woods, and the crack of a rifle awoke a hundred echoes and roused the men to a sense of their danger.
Even as for an instant he lingered beside the river-bank a blood-curdling yell, the war-whoop of the Iroquois, rang across the stream and echoed and re-echoed through the forest. A dozen rifles spattered out their leaden hail, for the conflict had begun at last.
Jack rushed back into the camp and found Major Ridout and the men already in position behind the logs, prepared to receive the enemy as soon as they should burst through that thin line of Algonquin scouts.
"Hullo, Jack!" cried Jamie. "Where have you been? I feared that you were a prisoner. Have you been scouting too?"
"Why, yes! That is, I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I saw a curious object in mid-stream and went down to see what it was."
"Well, I could no longer see it when I got there, but just as I was coming away I happened to look up-stream, and I saw three canoes crossing over from the southern bank.
"I wonder why the chief did not discover them before. He seems to have been watching the forest instead of the river! Hullo! What’s this?"
The sounds of a desperate struggle, a hand-to-hand fight in the bushes a few yards away, attracted their attention. It was too dark, however, to see anything as yet, although the dawn would be upon them shortly.
