Feeling my way over bed stones and bottom gravel with my feet, striving in vain to pierce the dense obscurity, I moved forward with infinite caution, balancing as best I might against the current.  Ankle-deep, shin-deep, knee-deep we waded out.  Presently the icy current chilled my thighs, rising to my waistline.  But it grew no deeper.

Yet, here so swift was the current that I scarcely dared move, and was peering around to find the Sagamore, when a shape loomed up on my left.  And I reached out and rested my hand on the shadowy shoulder, and stood so, swaying against the stream.

Suddenly a voice said, in the Seneca dialect: 

“Is it thou, Butler?”

And every drop of blood froze in my body.

God knows how I found voice to answer “Yes,” and how I found courage to let my hand remain upon my enemy’s shoulder.

“It is I, Hiokatoo,” said the low voice.

“Move forward,” I said; and dropped my hand from his shoulder.

Somehow, although I could see nothing, all around me in the water I felt the presence of living creatures.  At the same moment somebody came close to me from behind, and the Sagamore breathed his name in my ear.

I managed to retain my presence of mind, and, laying my mouth against his ear in the darkness, I whispered: 

“The Seneca Hiokatoo and his warriors—­ all around us in the water.  He mistakes me for Walter Butler, They have been reconnoitring our camp.”

I felt the body of the Mohican stiffen under my grasp, Then he said quietly: 

“Stand still till all have passed us.”

“Yes; but let no Seneca hear your Algonquin speech.  If any speak I will answer for you.”

“It is well,” said the Sagamore quietly.  And I heard him cautiously loosening his hatchet.

Presently a dark form took shape in the gloom and passed us without speaking; then another, and another, and another, all wading forward with scarce a ripple sounding against their painted bodies.  Then one came up who spoke also in Seneca dialect, saying to the Mohican that the canoe was to be sent up stream on observation, and asking the whereabouts of McDonald.

So they were all there, the bloody crew!  But once more I found voice to order the Seneca across, saying that I would attend to the canoe when the time came to employ it.

This Indian seemed to understand very little English, and he hesitated; but I laid my hand flat on his naked back, and gave him a slight shove toward the farther shore.  And he went on, muttering.

Two more passed.  We waited in nervous silence for the next, not knowing how many had been sent to prowl around our camp.  And as no more came, I whispered to the Sagamore: 

“Let us go back.  If more are to come, and if there be among them Butler or McDonald or any white man, he will never mistake me for any of his fellows after he hears me speak.”