I has no doubt at all
about Bill Welch and his wife, but it may be that the gal has been
carried off."
"Do you think so?" Harold exclaimed eagerly. "If so, we may find her,
too, with the other."
"What other?" Pearson, asked.
Harold gave briefly an account of the reason which had brought them to
the spot and of the object they had in view.
"You can count me in," Pearson said. "There's just a chance that Nelly
Welch may be in their hands still; and in any case I'm longing to draw a
bead on some of the varmints to pay 'em for this," and he looked round
him, "and a hundred other massacres round this frontier."
"I'm glad to hear ye say so," Peter replied. "I expected as much of ye,
Jack. I don't know much of this country, having only hunted here for a
few weeks with a party of Delawares twenty year afore the Iroquois moved
so far west."
"I know pretty nigh every foot of it," Jack Pearson said. "When the
Iroquois were quiet I used to do a deal of hunting in their country. It
are good country for game."
"Well! shall we set out at once?" Harold asked, impatient to be off.
"We can't move to-night," Pearson answered; and Harold saw that Peter
and the Indians agreed with him.
"Why not?" he asked. "Every hour is of importance."
"That's so," Peter said, "but there's no going out on the lake to-night.
In half an hour we'll have our first snowstorm, and by morning it will
be two foot deep."
Harold turned his eyes toward the lake and saw what his companions had
noticed long before.
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