It was about twelve miles to the spot where they had hidden the
canoe, and although they heard distant shouts and whoops ringing
through the forest, no sound was heard near them.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ISLAND REFUGE.
The night was intensely cold and still and the stars shone brightly
through the bare boughs overhead. "Are you sure you are going all
right?" Nelly asked Harold. "It is so dark here that it seems
impossible to know which way we are going." "You can trust the
Indians," Harold said. "Even if there was not a star to be seen they
could find their way by some mysterious instinct. How you are grown,
Nelly! Your voice does not seem much changed, and I am longing to see
your face."
"I expect you are more changed than I am, Harold," the girl answered.
"You have been going through so much since we last met, and you seem
to have grown so tall and big. Your voice has changed very much, too;
it is the voice of a man. How in the world did you find us here?"
Pearson had gone on ahead to speak to the Seneca, but he now joined
them again.
"You mustn't talk," he said. "I hope there's no redskins within five
miles of us now, but there's never any saying where they may be."
There was, Harold thought, a certain sharpness in the hunter's voice,
which told of a greater anxiety than would be caused by the very
slight risk of the quietly spoken words being heard by passing
redskins, and he wondered what it could be.
They were now, he calculated, within a mile of the hiding place where
they had left the boat, and they had every reason for believing that
none of the Indians would be likely to have followed the shore so
far.
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