verything. I found--"
but here Barboux checked himself on the edge of a boast.

The Indian had sunk on one knee and laid his ear to the ground.
"It will be of great price," said he, "if what you found will take us
out of this. They are not following as yet, and the water is near."

CHAPTER IX.

MENEHWEHNA SETTLES ACCOUNTS.

Weary as they were, there could be no thought of halting. The river
and the plain lay far below them yet, and they must push on through
the darkness.

Hitherto the forest had awed John by its loneliness; its
night-voices, falling at rare intervals on his ear and awaking him
from dreams beside the camp-fire, had seemed to cry and challenge
across immense distances as though the very beasts were far astray.
But now, as he crouched behind Menehwehna, he felt it to be no less
awfully inhabited. A thousand creeping things stirred or slunk away
through the undergrowth; roosting birds edged towards one another in
the branches, ever on the point of flapping off in panic; the
thickets were warm from the flanks of moose and deer. And all this
wild life, withdrawing, watched the four fugitives with a thousand
eyes.

These imaginary terrors did him one service. They kept him awake.
By and by his brain began to work clearly, as it often will when the
body has passed a certain point of fatigue. "If these Indians on the
ridge are Iroquois, why should I run? The Iroquois are friends of
England, and would recognise my red coat. The man they killed was a
Canadian, a _coureur de bois_; they will kill Barboux if they catch
him, and also these two Ojibways. But to me capture will bring
release."

He understood now why Menehwehna had called him a fool.
Nevertheless, as he went, the screams on the cliff rang in his ears
again, closing the argument.

Muskingon still led. He had struck a small mountain stream and was
tracking it down towards the river--keeping wide of it to avoid the
swampy ground, relying on his ears and the lie of the slope.
Menehwehna followed close, ready to give counsel if needed; but the
young Indian held on in silence, never once hesitating.

The debate in John's brain started afresh. "These Iroquois mean _me_
no harm. I am sure enough of that, at any rate, to face the risk of
it. Barboux is my enemy--my country's enemy--and I dislike in him
the little I don't despise. As for Menehwehna and Muskingon--they, I
suppose, are my enemies, and the Iroquois my friends." Som