"
"What is thy reason for thus thinking?"
"Because I find that each halting-place of Micco's band has been
carefully examined after their departure. I have also found the
remains of several small but recent camp-fires on opposite sides of the
river from theirs, and around them I find the traces of but two men.
One of these men is very large, and he wears moccasins that were never
made by my people. I fear they are enemies."
"But why should they be enemies?" asked Rene. "May they not be some of
thy band left behind like thyself. Or may not one of them be of thy
tribe, and the other be one of the guests who attended the Feast of
Ripe Corn?"
"That is easily answered," replied the young Indian. "If they were
friends who for some reason had been left behind, and were now anxious
to rejoin those whom they follow, they could have done so long since.
Their fires burned at the same time with those of my people, and they
have visited Micco's camps before the ashes of his fires grew cold.
Besides, in each case their own fires were carefully hidden, so that
they could not by any chance be seen by those who were in advance of
them."
"Who, then, can be following so large a band, and for what purpose?
Surely two cannot harm so many."
"That I know not, but I fear them to be of the outlawed Seminoles.[1]
If so, they are following my people for the purpose of picking up
plunder, or of snatching the prize of a scalp--a thing they could only
gain by a cowardly attack upon one defenceless, for they dare not seek
it in open fight.
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