"The shortest way is not always the best." Before morning they saw other smoke signals in the south, and it became quite evident then that the passage could not be tried, except at a risk perhaps too great to take.
"There's nothing for it but the north," said Willet, "and we'll trust to luck to get the letter to Waraiyageh in time.

Perhaps we can find Rogers.

He must be roaming with his rangers somewhere near Champlain." At dawn they were up and away, but all through the forenoon they saw rings of smoke rising from the peaks and ridges, and the last lingering hope that they were not followed disappeared.

It became quite evident to their trained observation and the powers of inference from circumstances which had become almost a sixth sense with them that there was a vigorous pursuit, closing in from three points of the compass, south, east and west.

They slept again the next night in the forest without fire and arose the following morning cold, stiff and out of temper.