"Guess we'll give 'em a good hour's start," said Steve. "Jim, I'll make back and keep an eye on the river with Silver Fox. If all is right I'll strike once on the trunk of a tree. If they are following you will hear two blows."
He and the Indian slipped away from the little band of backwoodsmen, and within an hour were looking down upon the river which they had so recently left. It was black with canoes which were passing to and fro, while a number were drawn up in front of the bank where Steve had had his encounter with Jules Lapon. Above the tops of the trees hung a dense pall of smoke, a dozen other columns shewing where the settlers had fired their huts.
"They will follow to-morrow, Hawk," said Silver Fox, when he had looked at the scene for some little while. "They think that they will easily come up with us. In two days they will surround our party and we shall have to fight. It would be well to ambush them."
That set Steve thinking, and for an hour he lay there in the bracken staring down at the river. Then he got to his feet, picked up a fallen branch and struck the trunk of a massive tree a heavy blow, repeating the blow again some two minutes later.
"They will hear that," he said. "Now we will return, Silver Fox. Have you ever been on this trail?"
"Do you remember the hills lying a day's march from this? There is a gap."
The Indian suddenly came to a stop, for they were returning by now, and stared into Steve's face. "The Hawk is sharp," he said, with a flash of his keen eyes. "Silver Fox remembers that gap. There we will lay an ambush."
They trudged on through the forest and presently came up with Jim and his comrades. Then, with two men scouting in the woods on either side, and the same number in rear and in front, the tiny little party of stern men strode on after the fugitives in advance. And when the morning of the second day broke they struggled up to the rising ground which Steve had mentioned to Silver Fox. It was a rugged and precipitous ridge, with trees growing thickly up to its foot, and thick, long scrub running to its summit. As Steve clambered to the top he saw that it stretched for some miles on either hand, and he knew that to cross it at any other spot would be a difficult task, for he and his father had often hunted in the district.