"And yer think them critters is after us?" demanded Jim. "They left their camp within the hour of our departure," was the slow answer. "They are now well on their way." Jim had had no need to ask that simple question. As an old and experienced trapper he knew well enough that the alarm must have reached the camp of the enemy within a very little while of their own departure, and it needed no consideration to tell him that they would make up the Mohawk river. "They kin tell as we ain't got no business towards New York," he growled, "and this here route air the only one that's left. Reckon the varmint air well on the road. They'll have canoes hid somewhere's within reach, and it won't be long afore they're out on the river. Boys, we've got to choose between holdin' on to those paddles or takin' to the woods." "Lose all our stores!" demanded Mac, indignantly. "Sure if we take to the forest we'll have to lave these canoes and the things, and for what is the use of that? Arrah! Lit's kape to the paddles, and if they follow we'll use our guns." "You forget one thing," said Tom Mainwaring, in his quiet and judicial tones. "We have paddled through the night. These rascals have been walking and running. Their arms will be unwearied. They will certainly overhaul us. There is nothing for it, I fear, but to strike across to the south bank, hide our canoes and stores as well as we are able, and then take to the trail." There was, indeed, little else to be suggested, and it was with sad hearts therefore that the little party turned the bows of the canoe towards the far bank. It was lighter now, though the mist still hid them, an occasional gust of wind blowing a portion of it away, for all the world as if it were a curtain, and disclosing something of their whereabouts, the surface of the silent river, the far bank, or the forest on that side for which they were making. "Steady a minute. Stop!" It was Steve's voice which broke the silence, and as they craned their necks to look back at him, they saw the long figure of the young trapper stretched in the small canoe, his musket still across his thighs and one hand upon it. The other shaded his eyes, as if the mist worried him. "Stop!" he called again in the lowest tone. "Wait while I come up with you." There was a paddle beside him, placed there to enable him to steer if occasion should make that necessary, and while his friends backed water, he drove his paddle into the river and swung his canoe round till it lay alongside the other. To have endeavoured to bring it up directly would have been useless, for a short tow rope connected the two. "You said that they would have canoes somewhere within reach," he said. "I overheard it, and I believe I have seen the very spot. The wind blew the mist aside suddenly, and I saw a tiny inlet. It is blocked with weeds and osiers, and they too were disturbed by the wind. I am sure that I got a glimpse of the bow of a canoe."