Searching the gloomy horizon again, he saw against the dark sky a
thin and darker line that he knew to be smoke. He inferred,
also, with certainty, that it came from an Indian camp, and,
without hesitation, turned his course toward it. Indian camp
though it might be, and containing the deadliest of foes, he was
glad to know something lived beside himself in this wilderness.

He approached with great caution, and found his surmise to be
correct. Lying full length in a wet thicket he saw a party of
about twenty warriors-Mohawks he took them to be-in an oak
opening. They had erected bark shelters, they had good fires,
and they were cooking. He saw them roasting the strips over the
coals-bear meat, venison, squirrel, rabbit, bird-and the odor, so
pleasant at other times, assailed his nostrils. But it was now
only a taunt and a torment. It aroused every possible pang of
hunger, and every one of them stabbed like a knife.

The warriors, so secure in their forest isolation, kept no
sentinels, and they were enjoying themselves like men who had
everything they wanted. Henry could hear them laughing and
talking, and he watched them as they ate strip after strip of the
delicate, tender meat with the wonderful appetite that the Indian
has after long fasting. A fierce, unreasoning anger and jealousy
laid hold of him. He was starving, and they rejoiced in plenty
only fifty yards away. He began to form plans for a piratical
incursion upon them. Half the body of a deer lay near the edge
of the opening, he would rush upon it, seize it, and dart away.
It might be possible to escape with such spoil.