To some ears it would have been inaudible; but Humphrey heard it, and his heart suddenly beat faster.
The sound was that of approaching steps--the steps of men.

A few minutes more and he heard the sound of voices, too.

He had been about to dash into the shed for his gun, but the fresh sounds arrested his movement.
He had ears as sharp as those of an ambushed Indian, and he detected in a moment that the men who were approaching the clearing were of his own nationality.

The words he could not hear, but he could distinguish the intonation.

It was not the rapid, thin-sounding French tongue; it was English--he was certain of it! And a light leaped to his eyes at the bare thought of meeting a brother countryman in this desolate place.
Probably it was some other settler, one of that hardy race that fringed the colony on its western frontier.