At this moment, Peter led the bee-hunter aside, telling his friends that he would speedily rejoin them.  Our hero followed his savage leader along the foot of the declivity, in the rear of the hut, until the former stopped at the place where the first, and principal fire of the past night, had been lighted.  Here Peter made a sweeping gesture of his hand, as if to invite his companion to survey the different objects around.  As this characteristic gesture was made, the Indian spoke.

“My brother is a medicine-man,” he said.  “He knows where whiskey grows—­let him tell Peter where to find the spring.”

The recollection of the scene of the previous night came so fresh and vividly over the imagination of the bee-hunter, that, instead of answering the question of the chief, he burst into a hearty fit of laughter.  Then, fearful of giving offence, he was about to apologize for a mirth so ill-timed, when the Indian smiled, with a gleam of intelligence on his swarthy face, that seemed to say, “I understand it all,” and continued—­

“Good—­the chief with three eyes”—­in allusion to the spy—­glass that le Bourdon always carried suspended from his neck—­“is a very great medicine-man; he knows when to laugh, and when to look sad.  The Pottawattamies were dry, and he wanted to find them some whiskey to drink, but could not—­our brother, in the canoe, had drunk it all.  Good.”

Again the bee-hunter laughed; and though Peter did not join in his mirth, it was quite plain that he understood its cause.  With this good-natured sort of intelligence between them, the two returned to the canoes; the bee-hunter always supposing that the Indian had obtained his object, in receiving his indirect admission, that the scene of the previous night had been merely a piece of ingenious jugglery.  So much of a courtier, however, was Peter, and so entire his self-command, that on no occasion, afterward, did he ever make any further allusion to the subject.

The ascent of the river was now commenced.  It was not a difficult matter for le Bourdon to persuade Margery, that her brother’s canoe would be too heavily loaded for such a passage, unless she consented to quit it for his own.  Pigeonswing took the girl’s place, and was of material assistance in forcing the light, but steady craft, up stream.  The three others continued in the canoe in which they had entered the river.  With this arrangement, therefore, our adventurers commenced this new journey.

Every reader will easily understand, that ascending such a stream as the Kalamazoo was a very difficult thing from descending it.  The progress was slow, and at many points laborious.  At several of the “rifts,” it became necessary to “track” the canoes up; and places occurred at which the only safe way of proceeding was to unload them altogether, and transport boats, cargoes, and all, on the shoulders of the men, across what are called, in the language of the country, “portages,” or “carrying-places.”