"Can you guide us to the sea?" asked Lord. Yes; they could. It was but a few miles distant. "Very well, then," he continued, turning to the chief. "If you will give me these men, and will swear by the Great Spirit that you will not again trouble the white men's camps, we will promise not to betray your hiding-place." A rapid exchange of glances took place between the Indians, and then the chief said emphatically: "I give up the prisoners, and I swear that my tribe will keep faith with yours." Lord then swore to his part of the bargain, and, anxious to escape from the Indians at once, paid the guides and set off immediately in the wake of the liberated prisoners. "What do you think about it?" he asked the eldest of the Canadians, when they were well on the road through the wood. "I think they were a sight too ready to give way. We haven't seen the last of 'em, I reckon." "Well; we shall be in open country directly, according to the Chinamen," said Lord. He was disposed towards a hopeful view, the more so that he had given the Indians plainly to understand that they would pay dearly for any attempt at treachery. Once or twice, on looking back, he perceived men walking slowly behind them, but as these were only armed with bows, and made no pretence of secrecy, he took little notice; and, in another hour, the wood came to an end. But where was the promised gorge? The only path he could see was a granite ridge, which on one side was bounded by a stretch of rough rising ground, and on the other became a precipice. The guides, however, remained confident, and, after hinting that it would be bad for them if they led him wrong, he followed them. "What's that?" he cried suddenly, when they had travelled about half a mile along the ridge in single file. All reined up at a sound similar to that of a "moose-trumpet," or bark horn. Then they saw that three Indians had appeared from the wood behind them, had come to a stop on the edge of the cliff, and were looking across the chasm towards a precipice twice the height of that on which they stood. Evidently their trumpeting was intended to rouse somebody across the chasm, for two or three indistinct figures soon appeared on the farther cliff. Then one of the Indians who had followed Lord's party raised his arms and began to make signs to those on the other side. "Signalling, eh?" said one of the men. "Can you read it, Mr. Lord?" The redskin was, in fact, transmitting a message across the chasm, employing a system of telegraphy similar to that used in Japan, or among our own sailors: a form of "deaf and dumb alphabet" not uncommon among the Indians of the hills and prairies. "I can read enough to see that these rascals are warning someone to stop us," said Lord. "Though how they reckon to do that remains to be seen. Let's get on as fast as possible." [Illustration: A PRIMITIVE SYSTEM OF TELEGRAPHY