ry hungry, and would have eaten him raw without compunction; but none
came within my grasp.

At last I could bear it no longer. Food I must have, or strength
sufficient would not be left me to swim across the river. I fully
believed that the Indians had gone to a distance, and that I might
therefore make the attempt without being seen by them. However, I did
not intend to swim directly across, as I had done before, but to allow
myself to float down with the stream, paddling easily till I could gain
the opposite bank. I should thus be assisted rather than impeded by the
current.

I nerved myself up for the enterprise. I believed that it would be more
easy to make my way out of the hole through the branches on the
land-side, and then, going round them, take to the water where there was
no back eddy. I had observed, a little lower down, that the current set
directly across to the opposite bank, and it was this which had caused
me so much trouble to reach the spot where I now was.

Popping up my head, I was about to climb out of the hole, when what was
my horror to see four Indians sitting silently smoking their pipes,
directly in front of me! To escape was impossible, for I knew that they
had perceived me by the loud grunts they uttered, and by one of them
immediately springing to his feet and rushing forward towards the tree.

Endeavouring to conceal my fears, I leaped down and advanced towards
them, putting out my hand. Instead of taking it, the man who was
advancing grasped me by the shoulder; while the others burst into a loud
guttural laugh, as much as to say, "You thought yourself very clever,
young master, but we have outwitted you."

How they came to know that I was in the tree, I could not divine;
perhaps they only suspected that I was in the neighbourhood, from not
finding my dead body lower down, and had taken their seats on that spot
by chance.

One of the men now addressed me, but I could not understand a word he
said. I answered him, however, in English, interspersed with such
Indian expressions as I could recollect. He on this rose to his feet,
patted me on the shoulder, and pointed to the tree; intimating, as I
fancied, that I had been very clever to conceal myself as I had done,
but that he and his companions were cleverer still to discover me.

As I was famishing, for my anxiety had not taken away my appetite, I
thought it as well to let them understand that I wanted something to
eat. E