"Does my brother think, then, that Unicorn is a child, who cannot recognise an animal?" the sachem asked, haughtily.
"Heaven forbid my having such a thought, chief; I know you are an experienced warrior, but the cleverest men may be taken in."
"Oh! Oh! what does my brother suppose, then?"
"Yes, my brother will speak; he is a great hunter, his knowledge is immense."
"No, I am only an ignorant fellow, but I have carefully studied the habits of wild beasts."
"Well," Don Miguel asked, "your opinion is that the bear--?"
"Is Red Cedar, or one of his sons," Valentine quickly interrupted.
"Just this: at this hour wild beasts have gone down to drink; but even supposing that bear had returned already, do you not know that all animals fly from man? This one, dazzled by the light, startled by the cries it heard in the usually quiet forest, ought to have tried to escape if it obeyed its instincts, which would have been easy to do, instead of impudently dancing before us at a height of one hundred feet from the ground; the more so, because the bear is too prudent and selfish an animal to confide its precious carcase so thoughtlessly to such slender branches as those on which it was balancing. Hum! The more I reflect, the more persuaded I am that this animal is a man."
The hunters, and Unicorn himself, who listened with the utmost attention to Valentine's words, were struck with the truth of his remarks; numerous details which had escaped them now returned to their minds, and corroborated the Trail-hunter's suspicions.
"It is possible," Don Miguel said, "and for my part I am not indisposed to believe it."
"Good gracious!" Valentine went on, "You can understand that on so dark a night as this it was easy for the chief, in spite of all his experience, to be deceived--especially at such a distance as we were from the animal, which we only glimpsed; still, we committed a grave fault, and I first of all, in not trying to acquire a certainty."
"Ah!" the Indian said, "my brother is right; wisdom resides in him."
"Now it is too late to go back--the fellow will have decamped," Valentine remarked, thoughtfully; "but," he added a moment after, as he looked round, "where on earth is Curumilla?"
At the same instant a loud noise of breaking branches, followed by a suppressed cry, was heard a little distance off.