This of itself would
make them enemies, and has no doubt been the cause of his being
taken; but I do not well see how Injins on the lake here can know
anything of what happened some fifty miles or so up in the
Openings."
"Perhaps the savages in the canoes belong to the same party as the
warrior you call Elksfoot, and that they have had the means of
learning his death, and by whose hand he fell."
The bee-hunter was surprised at the quickness of the girl's wit, the
suggestion being as discreet as it was ingenious. The manner in
which intelligence flies through the wilderness had often surprised
him, and certainly it was possible that the party now before him
might have heard of the fate of the chief whose body he had found in
the Openings, short as was the time for the news to have gone so
far. The circumstance that the canoes had come from the northward
was against the inference, however, and after musing a minute on the
facts, le Bourdon mentioned this objection to his companion.
"Are we certain these are the same canoes as those which I saw pass
this afternoon?" asked Margery, who comprehended the difficulty in
an instant. "Of those I saw, two passed first, and one followed;
while here are FOUR that have landed.
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