Taking the lead, therefore, with his own canoe, Peter paddled UP,
instead of DOWN the stream, going in a direction opposite to that
which it would naturally be supposed the fugitives had taken. In
doing this, also, he kept close under the bank which would most
conceal the canoes from those who approached it on its southern
side.
It will be remembered that the trees for the palisades had been cut
from a swamp, a short distance above the bee-hunter's residence.
They had grown on the margin of the river, which had been found
serviceable in floating the logs to their point of destination. The
tops of many of these trees, resinuous, and suited by their nature
to preserve their leaves for a considerable time, lay partly in the
stream and partly on its banks; and Pigeonswing, foreseeing the
necessity of having a place of refuge, had made so artful a
disposition of several of them, that, while they preserved all the
appearance of still lying where they had fallen, it was possible to
haul canoes up beneath them, between the branches and the bank, in a
way to form a place of perfect concealment. No Indian would have
trusted to such a hiding-place, had it not been matter of notoriety
that the trees had been felled for a particular purpose, or had
their accidental disposition along the bank been discernibly
deranged.
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