"Let us go down," said Boulanger, as soon as he recovered from the first shock, "let us go down; it is not so very long since this has happened, surely they cannot all have perished--at least we may learn something as to how this came about, and if any yet survive." They descended the hill, and scarcely had the guide begun to cross the first tract of cultivated ground when the mournful expression of his face changed to one of curiosity and surprise. "Why, what is this?" exclaimed he, pointing to a dark object that lay at a short distance from the spot. "A dead Huron, and in his war paint! Yes--and there lies another. There has been a fight here not many hours since, and the red skins have been worsted or we should not see that sight, and yet the half dozen men belonging to the place could have been no match for them." Boulanger hurried forward, Isidore following him, and they soon came to an open spot that had served as a kind of village green, on which many articles of various kinds were strewed about. "Look here, and here!" cried he, now seizing Isidore by the arm and pointing first in one direction, then in another. Half irritated at this familiarity, half bewildered by Boulanger's words, Isidore gazed about him; but the broken musket, the extinguished camp-fire, the rudely tied up bundle of spoils, such as none but a Red Indian would prize, were to him wholly without meaning. To add to his perplexity, Boulanger, who had been scrutinising everything around them with eager curiosity, suddenly quitted his side, and vaulting over a fence, disappeared in the wood that skirted the clearing. "Hang the fellow!" muttered Isidore. "This is a little too bad. If he expects me to follow him everywhere, he is mistaken. A pretty thing, truly, if I were to miss him and lose myself in this out-of-the-way place, I'll let him know that it is his business to attend to me instead of running about to look after dead savages, or live Englishmen either." The guide, however, soon reappeared, saying, as he rejoined his companion, "There are red skins enough lying in the wood yonder. They must have been surprised here after a successful attack on some other place, and the people here have had little or no share in it, but have been helped by some much stronger force than they could muster. That's plain enough, at all events." "It may be all plain enough to you," replied Isidore. "As for me, I can see there has been a fight between the white men and savages; but more than that I cannot make out, and in truth I don't see that it matters much to us, except that we are disappointed of our expected quarters for the night." There was a look of anger not wholly unmixed with contempt on the face of the Canadian as Isidore concluded these remarks. "Truly," said he, "I had forgotten, in my anxiety for the fate of many who were no strangers to me, that monsieur may lose his supper and his bed."