"
"Stop! stop! my knife, my couteau. Ah, here I be! Now, boy."
The three set off as usual, strolling carelessly to the outskirts
of the camp; then they quickened their pace, and, gaining the lake,
pushed off in a small canoe.
At the same moment Mahtawa stepped from the bushes, leaped into
another canoe, and followed them.
"Ha! he must die," muttered Henri.
"Not at all," said Joe; "we'll manage him without that."
The chief landed and strode boldly up to them, for he knew well that
whatever their purpose might be they would not venture to use their
rifles within sound of the camp at that hour of the night. As for
their knives, he could trust to his own active limbs and the woods to
escape and give the alarm if need be.
"The Pale-faces hunt very late," he said, with a malicious grin. "Do
they love the dark better than the sunshine?"
"Not so," replied Joe, coolly; "but we love to walk by the light of
the moon. It will be up in less than an hour, and we mean to take a
long ramble to-night."
"The Pawnee chief loves to walk by the moon, too; he will go with the
Pale-faces.
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