Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/91

Rh it David had built a sort of pier of stones over the mire. To-day he had filled one bucket and carried it to the bank and was  filling the second when a slight sound in the  alders to the left caused him to glance  swiftly. That something had moved there he was certain, and it seemed that his eyes  had glimpsed it, and yet it was gone before  he could be sure of the latter. He had an impression of something brown or leather-hued between the trees which might well have been  an old fox. He listened intently and searched the thicket with his gaze, but no other sound  reached him, and presently he lifted the  bucket and picked his way across the stones  to the firm ground. There the sensation of being watched came to him strongly, so that  the skin at the back of his neck prickled, and  he wheeled quickly and again scanned the  swamp. A bird fluttering amongst the alders caused his heart to jump and he laughed at  himself and took up his buckets.

“’Tis this talk of Indians,” he muttered as he made his way along the path he had  worn to the clearing. “I am as fluttery as a hen!”

He was a scant three paces from the edge of the thicket when the noise of a snapping