“that there may be a tree-cat in their vicinity.”

A dead silence followed. The Wyandotte’s countenance was still smiling, but I thought the smile had stiffened and become fixed, though not a tremour moved him. Yet, what the Mohican had said — always with two meanings, and one quite natural and innocent — meant, if taken in its sinister sense, that not only might there be Senecas lying in ambush at the ford, but also emissaries from the Red Priest Amochol himself. For the forest lynx, or tree-cat, was the emblem of these people; and every Indian present knew it.

Still, also, every man there had seen crows gather around and scold a lynx lying flattened out on some arching limb.

Whether now there was any particular suspicion