al pass,
and Menehwehna, rounding an angle of the cliff, had been lost to
sight for a moment, when John heard a low guttural cry--whether of
surprise or warning he could not tell.

He ran forward at Barboux's heels. A dozen paces ahead of the
Indian, reclining against the rock-face on a heap of _scree_, in the
very issue of the pass, with leagues of sunlight beyond him and the
basin of the plain at his feet, sat a man.

He did not move; and at first this puzzled them, for he lay dark
against the sun, and its rays shone in their eyes.

But Menehwehna stepped close up to him and pointed. Then they saw,
and understood.

The man was dead; dead and scalped--a horrible sight.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FARTHER SLOPE.

Barboux's complexion had turned to a sick yellow beneath its mottles.
He had been walking hard, and had eaten too much throughout the
voyage; no doubt, too, the sunset light painted his colour deeper.
But the man fairly twittered.

Menehwehna muttered an Indian name.

"Eh? Speak low, for the love of God!" The sergeant swept the cliffs
above and around with a shuddering glance.

"Les Agniers, as you call them--but Iroquois for certain. The man,
you see, is Canayan--" Menehwehna began coolly to handle the corpse.
"He has been dead for hours, but not many hours." He lifted an arm
and let it fall, after trying the rigidity of the muscles. "Not many
hours," he repeated; and signed to Muskingon, who began to crawl
forward and, from the gap of the pass, to reconnoitre the slope
below.

"And in the interval they have been tracking _us_, belike?"

"They may, indeed, have spied us coming from the cliffs above,"
answered Menehwehna unperturbed. "If so, they are watching us at
this moment, and there is no escaping; but this we shall learn within
twenty paces, since between the rocks here they have us at their
will. You, O illustrious, they might suffer to promenade yourself
for a while in the open, for the sake of better sport; with us, who
are Ojibways, they would deal while yet they could be sure."

He said it without any show of vanity, nor did he trouble himself to
glance around or above for signs of the foe. "We had best make trial
of this without delay," he added. "For if they fire the noise may
reach the other two and warn Bateese, who is clever and may yet save
himself."

"What the devil care I for Bateese?" snarled Barboux. "If they have
tracked us, they have tracked all. I run no r