HOME AGAIN. 177 



knew it not. While we were cooking and eating our meal, and 

 when we had lain down to sleep, an Indian scout was watching us 

 from a clump of thickly clustered trees that grew some fifty yards 

 from our tents. It could not be seen in the shadows, and the land 

 breeze that blew from us to it prevented the dogs scenting it. No 

 motion attested weariness, no sound betokened its cat-like arrival. 

 It was the skeleton at the feast. 



As the morning brightened the east, the figure melted away with 

 the warm colours of the sky, and when Mike left the camp to loiter 

 around for his usual morning walk he found the dew disturbed on 

 the grass, and following the slight trail he carried it to the edge of 

 a bayou, where he noticed the rushes were divided as though they 

 had been bent by somebody passing through. As he watched 

 them carefully they still arose, closing more and more of the open- 

 ing, showing that whatever had disturbed them, had but just de- 

 parted. The hunter surveyed the whole bay and the opening 

 bayous, and then followed back the trail to the clump of trees 

 where the scout had spent the night, and examined the place care- 

 fully. He then made several casts around the camp, each one of 

 greater circuit, examining as he went every indication of the 

 presence, during the night, of any other person, and finally re- 

 turned with his measured tread, and took his place by the fire. 



From the survey he had made, he knew there was but one 

 Indian on the island ; he knew by the track, the new footmarks 

 overlapping old ones, that the Indian had come and gone in the 

 same direction. He knew that he was there to watch the hunting 

 party, and for no other reason; and by the matted grass in the 

 thorn-bushes he knew that he had passed the most of the night in 

 the same place. It was no straggler, for he had an object; no 

 hunter, for he was without dog or comrade. Whatever Mike's 

 reflections were, he kept them secret, and smiled at Lou's jests 

 and chatted as quietly with the Doctor, while he superintended 

 the loading of the boats for the return trip, as though he had not 

 left the camp. 



The tents were struck and packed, our few skins and trophies 

 were stowed away in the canoes, and when we had finished a 

 hearty breakfast, and Eose had cooked sufficient venison and corn- 



M 



