Shrill, tremulous, loud, and sufficiently prolonged,
it seems the very cry of warning. It is often raised, also, at
night, an exception to the habits of most of the other feathered
inmates of the wilderness; a circumstance which had induced Hurry
to select it as his own signal. There had been sufficient time,
certainly, for the two adventurers to make their way by land from
the point where they had been left to that whence the call had come,
but it was not probable that they would adopt such a course. Had
the camp been deserted they would have summoned Deerslayer to the
shore, and, did it prove to be peopled, there could be no sufficient
motive for circling it, in order to re-embark at so great a
distance. Should he obey the signal, and be drawn away from the
landing, the lives of those who depended on him might be the forfeit-
and, should he neglect the call, on the supposition that it had been
really made, the consequences might be equally disastrous, though
from a different cause. In this indecision he waited, trusting that
the call, whether feigned or natural, would be speedily renewed.
Nor was he mistaken. A very few minutes elapsed before the same
shrill warning cry was repeated, and from the same part of the
lake.
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