him no further security. He therefore quitted it altogether,
and struck, in an oblique direction, up the opposite face
of the ravine. Scarcely had he gone twenty yards, when
he heard the voices of several Indians conversing earnestly
near the canoe he had just quitted; and presently afterwards
he could distinctly hear them ascending the opposite brow
of the ravine by the path he recently congratulated
himself on having abandoned. To advance or to recede was
now equally impracticable; for, on every side, he was
begirt by enemies, into whose hands a single false step
must inevitably betray him. What would he not have given
for the presence of Oucanasta, who was so capable of
advising him in this difficulty! but, from the moment of
his descending into the ravine, he had utterly lost sight
of her.

The spot on which he now rested was covered with thick
brushwood, closely interwoven at their tops, but affording
sufficient space beneath for a temporary close concealment;
so that, unless some Indian should touch him with his
foot, there was little seeming probability of his being
discovered by the eye. Under this he crept, and lay,
breathless and motionless, with his head raised from the
ground, and his ear on the stretch for the slightest
noise. For several minutes he remained in this position,
vainly seeking to catch the sound of a voice, or the fall
of a footstep; but the most deathlike silence had succeeded
to the fierce yellings that had so recently rent the
forest. At times he fancied he could distinguish faint
noises in the direction of the encampment; and so certain