By the parting
light of day, he distinctly saw FOUR canoes coming up the stream;
which was one more than those reported to him by Margery as having
passed.
CHAPTER VI.
And long shall timorous fancy see
The painted chief and pointed spear;
And reason's self shall bow the knee
To shadows and delusions here.
FRENEAU.
A bright moon reflected on the earth for about an hour the light of
the sun, as the latter luminary disappeared. By its aid the bee-
hunter, who still continued in the tree, was enabled to watch the
movements of the canoes of the Indians, though the persons they
contained soon got to be so indistinct as to render it impossible to
do more than count their numbers. The last he made out to be five
each in three of the canoes, and six in the other, making twenty-one
individuals in all. This was too great an odds to think of
resisting, in the event of the strangers turning out to be hostile;
and the knowledge of this disparity in force admonished all the
fugitives of the necessity of being wary and prudent.
The strangers landed just beneath the hut, or at the precise spot
where Whiskey Centre was in the habit of keeping his canoe, and
whence Boden had removed it only an hour or two before.
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