The irritable red of Alloway's face turned to a deeper tint, but he controlled himself.

"Doubtless you are right, Blackstaffe," he said, "but we are here at last."

Wyatt had been speaking in a low tone to the chiefs, and it inflamed a choleric man like Alloway to hear anyone saying words that he could not understand. He was not able to restrain himself wholly a second time.

"What is it, man? What is it that you're saying to the chiefs?" he exclaimed.

"I was merely telling them," replied Wyatt, "that you and your aide, Lieutenant Cartwright, had been made weary by the long walk through the woods, and that we'd better let you rest a little before going down to inspect the canoes."

A blaze of anger appeared in Alloway's eyes, but the younger officer who had been watching his chief with some apprehension, said deferentially:

"Suppose, sir, that we do as they suggest. Campaigning in this wilderness is not like fighting on the open fields of Europe."

They all sat down about the fire, and venison, jerked buffalo meat and roasted grain were served to them. The two chiefs were silent, and, holding themselves with dignity, were impressive. Presently one of them took from under his deerskin tunic a pipe, with a long stem, and a bowl, carved beautifully. He crowded some tobacco into it, put a live coal on top and took two or three long puffs. Then he passed it to the other chief who after doing the same handed it to Colonel Alloway.

The officer hesitated, not seeming to understand the meaning of the pipe at that particular time, and Wyatt said, maliciously:

"The pipe of peace, sir!"

"Why should we smoke a pipe of peace when we're already allies?"

"A little feeling has been shown on our march through the woods to the river. Indians, sir, are very sensitive. These two chiefs, Yellow Panther and Red Eagle, are the heads of powerful tribes, and if their feelings are hurt in any manner they will resent it, even to the point of withdrawing all their warriors and returning north of the Ohio. I suggest, sir, that you smoke the pipe at once, and return it to them."

Colonel Alloway did so, Cartwright took it readily, after them the two renegades smoked, and thus it was passed around the circle. It came back to Red Eagle, who knocked the coals out of the pipe and then gravely returned it to its resting place.

Henry had watched it all with eager attention, and when the little ceremony was finished he made another short circle through the bushes that brought him close to the river, where he saw about twenty canoes and two boats much larger, built stoutly and apparently able to sustain a great weight. He knew at once that they were intended for the cannon and that they had been brought down the Ohio and then up the tributary stream. Both had oars and he surmised that the white gun crews would use them, since the Indians were familiar only with the paddle. These boats, scows he would have called them, were tied to the bank and were empty. Some of the canoes were empty also, but in seven or eight, Indian warriors were lying asleep.

He was quite certain that the cannon would be brought up the next day, and be loaded on the scows, and he wished now for the presence of his comrades. The five together might accomplish something real before the dawn, and then he resolved that since he was alone he would attempt it alone. He withdrew to a considerable distance, and lay down in the bushes, very close.

It was hard to think of a plan that seemed feasible, and he concentrated his mind upon it until his brain began to feel inflamed, as if with a fever. But the idea came at last. It was full of danger, and it called for almost supernatural skill, but he believed that he could do it. Then the fever went out of his brain and the tension of his nerves relaxed. He felt himself imbued with new strength and courage, and his soul rose to its task.

He saw the two officers, the renegades and the chiefs come down to the edge of the river, and talk with the warriors there. No very strict watch was kept, because none seemed to be needed. Then blankets were spread for them under the trees, and they went to sleep. Most of the warriors followed their example, and not more than three or four sentinels were left on watch. These three or four, however, would have eyes to see in the darkness and ears to hear when a leaf fell.

But Henry did not sleep. He was never more wide-awake. He made his way carefully through the bushes farther up the stream to a point where he noticed the last canoe lying empty near the shore, almost hidden in the shadows cast on the water by the overhanging boughs.

He came to a point parallel with it and not more than ten feet away, and critically examining the river saw that the water was quite deep there, which suited his purpose. The light craft was held merely by a slender piece of bark rope. Then he began the most perilous part of his task. He returned toward the sleeping officers and chiefs, and, lying flat upon the ground in the deep grass and heavy shadows, began slowly to worm himself forward. It was a thing that no one could have accomplished without great natural aptitude, long training and infinite patience. He knew that risk of detection existed, but he calculated that, if seen, he might be up and away before any one of his enemies could find time for a good shot.

The Englishmen in particular were the mark at which he aimed. He had noticed that the younger one carried a large horn of powder and he was likely to be careless about it, a belief that was verified as he drew near. The Englishman had taken off his belt, bullet pouch and powder horn, all of which now lay on the ground near him.

A long arm was suddenly thrust from the grass and a hand closing on the powder horn took it away. Henry felt that it was well filled and heavy and he glowed with triumph. The first link in his chain had been forged. He crept back into the bushes, and stopped there twice, lying very still. He saw the Indian sentinels moving about a little, but evidently they suspected nothing. They were merely changing positions and quickly relapsed into silence and stillness.

It was fully half an hour before Henry was back at his place opposite the swinging little canoe. Then he shook the powder horn triumphantly, put it down at the foot of a tree and covered it up with some leaves. As he did so he noticed that many of last year's leaves were quite dry and he remembered it.

Then he went back to forge the second link, which was not so difficult. The fire around which the white men and the chiefs had eaten their supper was a little distance back of the present camp, where he was quite sure that it was still smoldering, although deserted. He found a stick the end of which was yet a live coal, and circling a little wider on his return he came back to the powder horn.

Henry held the live point of the stick close to the ground where it could not cast a glow that the sentinels might see, and then waited a minute or so before taking any further action. Two links of the chain had been forged and he felt now that he would carry it to its full length and success. He had never been more skillful, never more in command of all his faculties, and they had never worked in more perfect coordination. There had never been a more perfect type of the human physical machine. Nature, in one of her happy moods, had lavished upon him all her gifts and now he was using them to the utmost, turning his ten talents into twenty.

The third link would be one of great difficulty, much harder than the bringing of the fire, and that was the reason why he was considering so well. He could discern the figures of three of the sentinels on land. Two of them were brawny warriors naked to the waist, and painted heavily. The third was quite young, younger than himself, a mere boy, perhaps on his first war path. Henry understood the feelings of hope and ambition that probably animated the Indian boy and he trusted that they would not come into conflict.

The sentinels were walking about, and when the one nearest him turned and moved away he gathered up quickly fallen brushwood which lay kiln-dry at the river's brink. Then he hid his rifle, other weapons and ammunition in the grass. For a brief space he must go unarmed, because he could not be cumbered in an effort to keep them dry.

Carrying the powder horn, the dry sticks and the one lighted at the end, he dropped silently into the water and managed with one arm to swim the few feet that separated him from the canoe. Then he passed around it, putting it between him and the land, and carefully lifted everything inside. He knew that the dry wood would burn fast when he placed the torch against it, and he put the horn full of powder very near.

Then he sank low in the water behind the canoe, and listened until he heard the faint sputter of the fire in the dry wood. Now new difficulties arose. He must time everything exactly, and for the sake of his enterprise and his own life he must keep the Indian alarm from coming too soon.

The sputtering was not yet loud enough for the warriors on the bank to hear it, and he ventured to rise high enough for another look over the edge of the canoe. In two minutes, he calculated, the fire would reach the powder horn. Then he drew from his belt his hunting knife, the only weapon that he had not discarded, and cut the withe that held the canoe.

Burying himself in the water to the nose he sent his fire ship down the stream toward the two scows intending for it to enter just between them. Now he needed all his skill and complete command over his will. The sputtering of the fire increased, and he knew that it was rapidly approaching the horn of powder. The flesh had an almost irresistible desire to draw away at once and swim for life, but an immense resolution held his body to its yet uncompleted task.

The canoe was moving with such a slight ripple that not an Indian sentinel had yet heard, but when it was within ten yards of its destination one happened to look over the river and see it moving. There would have been nothing curious in a canoe breaking its slender thong and floating with the current, but this one was floating against it. The Indian uttered a surprised exclamation and instantly called the attention of his comrades.

Henry knew that the supreme moment was at hand. The Indian warning had come, and the sputtering told him that the fire was almost at the powder horn. Giving his fire ship a mighty shove he sent it directly between the scows and then he made a great dive down and away. He swam under water as long as he could, and just as he was coming to the surface he heard and saw the explosion.

The two scows and the canoe seemed to leap into the air in the center of a volcano of light, and then all three came down in a rain of hissing and steaming fragments. The crash was stunning, and the light for a moment or two was intense. Then it sank almost as suddenly and again came the darkness, in which Henry heard the steaming of burning wood, the turmoil of riven waters and the shouts of warriors filled with surprise and alarm.

It was easy in all the confusion for him to reach the bank, recover his arms and speed into the forest. He had forged with complete success every link in his chain of destruction. The scows intended for the transportation of the cannon were blown to splinters, and while they might lash enough canoes together to sustain their weight, they must move slowly and at much risk.

Although he was dripping with water, Henry was supremely happy. When he undertook this feat he had believed that he would succeed, but looking back at it now it seemed almost incredible. But here he was, and the deed was done. He laughed to himself in silent pleasure. Wyatt, Blackstaffe and the others would undoubtedly trace it to him and his comrades, and he hoped they would. He was willing for them to know that the five were not only on watch but could act with terrific effect.

A half-mile away from the river and he heard a long fierce yell, uttered by many voices in unison. He knew they had picked up at the edge of the stream the tale that he had not sought to hide, and were hoping now for revenge upon the one who had cost them so much. But he laughed once more back of his teeth. In the darkness they might as well try to follow a bird of the air. He curved away, reached one of the numerous brooks intersecting the stream, and ran for a long time in its bed. Then he emerged, passed into a dense canebrake and stopped, where he took off his wet clothing and spread it out in the dark to dry. The blanket which he had left on the bank with his arms was warm and dry and he wrapped it around his body. Then he lay down with his weapons by his side.

The satisfied blood ran swiftly and proudly in the veins of the great forest runner. He had done other deeds as bold, but perhaps none as delicate as this. It had demanded a complete combination of courage and dexterity and perfect timing. A second more or less might have ruined everything. He could imagine the chagrin of the choleric colonel. Unless Wyatt and Blackstaffe restrained him he might break forth into complaints and abuse and charge the Indians with negligence, a charge that the haughty chiefs would repudiate at once and with anger. Then a break might follow.

Whether the break came or not he had insured a delay, and since the cannon could not yet be put upon the river he might find a way to get at them. He rolled on one side, made himself comfortable on the dead leaves and then heard the wind blowing a song of triumph through the cane. He fell asleep to the musical note, but awoke at dawn.

His clothing was dry, and, unwrapping himself from the tight folds of the blanket, he dressed. Then, stretching his muscles a little, to remove all stiffness or soreness he emerged from the canebrake. After examining a circle of the forest with both eye and ear to see that no warrior was near, he climbed a tree and looked over a sea of forest.

To the north where the great camp lay he saw spires of smoke rising, and to the east, where a detachment guarded the boats in the river, another column of smoke floated off into the blue dawn. So he inferred that they were yet uncertain about their campaign and that their forces would remain stationary for a little while. But he was sure that warriors were ranging the forest in search of him. Red Eagle and Yellow Panther would not let such an insult and loss pass without many attempts at revenge.

He descended and ate the last of his venison. He would have returned at once to his comrades, but he believed that many warriors were in between and he did not wish to draw danger either upon them or himself. He began another of his great curves and it took him away from the refuge in the cliff, coming back in two or three hours to the stream that bore the little Indian fleet. His triumph of the night before increased his boldness, and he resolved to return the following night and annoy further the detachment by the river. It would serve his cause, and it would be a pleasure to vex the dogmatic European colonel.

Weather was a great factor in the operation he was carrying on, and the coming night, fortunately for his purpose, promised to be dark. Spring is fickle in the valley of the Ohio, and toward evening clouds gathered, although there was not a sufficient closeness of the air to indicate rain. But the moon was feeble and by and by went away altogether. Then the stars followed, leaving only a black sky which hid Henry well, but which did not hide the smaller camp by the river from him.

Watchers had been spread out in a wider circle, but he had no difficulty in approaching the fire, built on the bank of the river, around which sat the two chiefs, the renegades and the British officers. Henry saw that the faces of all of them expressed deep discontent, and he enjoyed the joke, because joke it was to him. He understood the depths of their chagrin.

"We'll have to carry the cannon on the canoes, and maybe they'll fall into the river," said Alloway querulously. "How in thunder the blowing up of those scows was managed I don't understand!"

"Several of the warriors saw a canoe floating down, sir, just before the explosion," said Cartwright, "and it must have been no illusion, as a canoe is gone."

Cartwright had missed his horn of powder after the excitement from the explosion was over, but he supposed some Indian had used the opportunity to steal it, and he said nothing about his loss from fear of creating a breach.

"In my opinion, sir," said Braxton Wyatt, smoothly but with just a trace of irony, "it was done by Ware and his comrades."

"Impossible! Impossible!" said Alloway, testily. "The careless Indians left powder in the scows and in some manner equally careless it's been exploded. The tale of the canoe that floated upstream of its own accord was an invention to cover up their neglect."

"Do you wish us to translate for you and to state that opinion to the chiefs?" asked Blackstaffe.

Alloway gave him an angry glance, but he had prudence enough to say:

"No, of course not. After all, there may have been a canoe. But whatever it was it was most unfortunate. It delays us greatly, and it preys upon the superstitions of the warriors."

"They are very susceptible, sir, to such things," said Wyatt. "They dread the unknown, and this event has affected them unpleasantly. But I'm quite sure it was done by Ware, although I don't know how."

"Ware! Ware!" exclaimed Alloway, impatiently. "Why should a force like ours dread a single person?"

"Because, sir, he does things that are to be dreaded."

Yellow Panther, who had been sitting in silence, his arms folded across his great bare chest, arose and raised his hand. Braxton Wyatt turned toward him respectfully and then said to Colonel Alloway:

"The head chief of the Miamis wishes to speak, sir, and if you will pardon me for saying so, it will be wise for us to listen."

"Very well," said Alloway. "Tell us what he says."

Thus spoke Yellow Panther, head chief of the Miamis, veteran of many wars, through the medium of Braxton Wyatt:

"We and our brethren, the Shawnees, have come with many warriors upon a long war path. Our friends, the white men whom the mighty King George has sent across the seas to help us, have brought with them the great cannon which will batter down the forts of the Long Knives in Kaintuckee. But the signs are bad. The boats which were to carry the cannon on the river have been blown up. An enemy stands across our path and before we go farther we must hunt him down. If we cannot do it then Manitou has turned his face away from us."

Wyatt translated and Alloway sourly gave adhesion. It was hard for him to think that a single little group of borderers could hold up a great force like theirs, armed with cannon too. But he was acute enough to see that the menace of a rupture would become a reality if he insisted upon having his own way.

Henry had watched them while they talked, and then he turned aside to a point nearer the river's brink, from which he could see two pairs of their strongest canoes lashed together in the stream, ready for the reception of the cannon when they should come. How was he to get at them? He knew that he could not use a fire boat again, but these rafts, for such they were, must be destroyed in some manner.

Lying deep in the thickets he considered his problem. One of the reasons why he excelled nearly all the scouts of the border was because he thought so much harder and longer, and now he concentrated all his faculties for success.

It did not take him long to mature his plan, and when he had done so he moved down the stream, where the chance of an Indian sentinel discovering him was much smaller. There he waited a space, while the night darkened still more, the moon and stars being shut out entirely. A wind arose and little crumbling waves pursued one another on the surface of the river, which was flooded and yellow from spring rains.

He saw only one or two sentinels and they showed but dimly. Farther down the Englishmen, the chiefs and the renegades were sitting about the low fire, and he felt sure that the white men, at least, would sleep there by the coals. From his covert in the bushes he saw them presently spreading their blankets, and then they lay down with their feet to the smoldering fire. The chiefs soon followed them and elsewhere the warriors also rolled themselves in their blankets. They seemed to think that he would not come back, reasoning like the white men that the lightning would not strike in the same place twice.

So he waited long and patiently. This quality of patience was one in which the Caucasian was usually inferior to the Indian, but in the incessant struggle on the border it was always needed. Henry, through the power of his will and his original training among the Northwestern Indians, had acquired it in the highest degree. He could sit or lie an almost incredible length of time, so still that he would seem to blend into the foliage, and now as he lay in the bushes some of the little animals crept near and watched him. A squirrel, not afraid of the fire in the distance, came down the trunk of a tree, and hanging to the bark not five feet away regarded him with small red eyes.

Henry caught a glimpse of the little gray fellow and turning his head ever so slightly regarded him. The red eyes looked back at him half bold and half afraid, but Henry had lived in the wild so much that the two felt almost akin. The squirrel saw that the gigantic figure on the ground did not move, and that the light in the eyes was friendly. He crept a little nearer, devoured by curiosity. He had never seen a human being before, and instinct told him that he could escape up the tree before this great beast could rise and seize him. He edged cautiously an inch nearer, and the blue eyes of the human being smiled into the little red eyes of the animal.

The two gazed at each other for a half minute or so. It was a look of the utmost friendliness, and then the squirrel went noiselessly back up the tree. It was a good omen, thought Henry, but he still waited with the illimitable patience which is a necessity of the wild. He saw the fire, before which the white men and the chiefs lay sleeping, sink lower and lower. The night remained dark. The heavy drifting clouds which nevertheless were not ready to open for rain, moved overhead in solemn columns. The surface of the river grew dim, but now and then there was a light splash as a strong fish leaped up and fell back into the current. The Indian guards knowing well what made them, paid no attention to these sounds.

The wind increased and Henry saw all the canoes, including those lashed together, rocking in the current. The blast made a whistling sound among the bushes and boughs and he concluded that the time for him to act had come. He took off all his clothing, made it, his weapons and ammunition in a bundle which he fastened on his head, and then swam across the river. He went some distance down the bank, deposited everything except his heavy hunting knife securely in the bush, and then, with the knife in his teeth, dropped silently into the river.

The lashing of the wind and the perceptible rise of the stream from flooded tributaries farther up, made a considerable current, and Henry floated with it. But the bank on the camp side of the river was considerably higher than the other and first he swam across to its shelter.

It was so dark now that not even the keen eye of an Indian could have seen his dark head on the dark surface of the stream, and he was so powerful in the water that he swam like a fish without noise. Once or twice he caught the gleam of the fire on the bank, but he knew that he was not seen.

In a few minutes he dropped in behind the lashed canoes, and with the heavy hunting knife cut holes in their bark bottoms. He was skillful and strong, but it took him a half-hour to finish the task, and he stopped at intervals to see if the sentinels had noticed anything unusual. Evidently they dreamed as little of this venture as of that of the fire boat.

He cut a small hole in every one at first, and then enlarged them in turn, and when he saw the water rising in the boats he swam rapidly away, still keeping in the shelter of the near shore. Then he dived, rose just behind a curve and walked out on the opposite bank, his figure gleaming white for a moment before he crept into the woods where his clothes and weapons lay. He dressed with rapidity and still lying hidden he heard the first Indian cry.

The sentinels, hearing the gurgling of the water, had looked over and seen the sinking canoes. Even as they looked, and as the alarm brought others, the canoes filled with water and sank fifteen feet to the bottom of the stream.

A few rays of moonlight forced their way through the clouds just at that moment, and Henry saw the amazement on the faces of the warriors, and the anger on the faces of the white men, because Alloway and the others, awakened by the alarm, had hurried to the banks of the river.

He laughed low to himself but with deep and intense satisfaction. He was enough a son of the wild to understand the emotions of the Indians. He knew that the second destruction of the boats, but in a different way, would fill them with awe. They could attach no blame to the sentinels who watched as only Indians could watch.

Henry saw them lift the remaining canoes upon the bank for safety, and then send out scouts and runners in search of the dangerous foe who had visited them twice. None had yet come to his side of the river, but he knew that they would do so in time, and feeling that the deed was sufficient for the night, he fled away in the darkness.



CHAPTER V

THE FOREST JOKER

It was Henry's first thought to return to his comrades, but the way was long and he must pass by the greater Indian camp, which surely had out many sentinels. So he changed his mind and resolved to spend the night in the woods. Shif'less Sol and the others would not be alarmed about his absence. They too had acquired the gift of infinite patience and would remain under cover, until he returned, content with their stone walls and roof, having plenty of venison, and fresh water running forever in their home itself.

It was his idea to seek some thicket at a distance and lie hidden there until the next night, when he might achieve a fresh irruption upon the enemy. He had succeeded so far that he was encouraged to new attempts, and all the wilderness spirit in him came to the front. The civilization of the house and the city sank quite away. He was for the time being wholly a creature of the primeval forest, and while his breath was the very breath of the wild he felt with it a frolic fancy that demanded some outlet. He must sleep, but he would like to play a new trick upon his enemies before he slept.

The spirit of the Faun, in which the old Greeks believed, was re-created within him, and where could a better place for its re-creation have been found than in this vast green wilderness stretching from east to west a thousand miles, and from north to south fifteen hundred miles, a region almost untouched by the white man, the like of which was not to be found elsewhere on the globe.

He laughed a little in his triumph, though silently. As he strode along a stray ray of moonlight fell upon him now and then, and disclosed the tall, splendid figure, the incarnation of magnificent youth, the forest superman, one upon whom Nature had lavished every gift for the life that he was intended to live. Although his step was light and soundless, his figure expressed strength in every movement. It was shown in the swing of the mighty shoulders, and the long stride which without effort dropped the miles behind him.

It was destined, too, that he should have his wish for another achievement that night, one that would please the sportive fancy now so strong in him. After recrossing the river he saw on his left an opening of considerable size, and he heard grunts and groans coming from it. He knew that a buffalo troop was resting there. The foolish beasts had wandered into the Indian vicinity, but they would learn the proximity of the warriors the next day and wander away. Meanwhile Henry needed them and would use them. Now and then he reverted to the religious imagery which he had learned when he was with Red Cloud and his Northwestern tribe. Manitou had really sent this buffalo herd there for his particular benefit. It was the largest that he had ever seen in Kentucky. Fully five hundred of the great brutes rested in the opening and he needed numbers.

He passed into the thick forest near them, and then with infinite patience lighted a fire with his flint and steel. Securing long sticks of dead wood he ignited them both until they burned with a steady and strong flame. Strapping his rifle upon his back and holding aloft a flaming torch in either hand, and uttering fierce and wild shouts he charged directly upon the buffaloes.

He showed prodigious activity. All the extraordinary life that was in him leaped and sang in his veins. He rushed back and forth, uttering continuous shouts, whirling each torch until it made a perfect circle of fire. Doubtless to the heavy eyes of the buffaloes the single human being seemed twenty, every one enveloped in bursts of flame which they dreaded most of all things.

A big bull buffalo, the leader of the herd, crouched at the very edge of the opening, decided first that it was time to move. The whirling circles of fire with living beings inside of them filled him with terror. His ton of flesh quivered and quaked. He rose with a mighty heave to his feet and then with a bellow of fright took flight from the flashing devils of fire.

The whole herd was in a panic in an instant and followed the leader. They might have scattered in their fright, but they were shepherded by a human mind, which had allied with it a body without an equal in all that million and a half square miles of forest. As he leaped to and fro, shouting and whirling his torches, he drove the herd straight toward the camp on the river where the English officers and chiefs were even now asleep.

A few animals broke off from the herd and were lost in the bushes, but the rest ran, packed close, a long column, tapering at the front like an arrow head, with the big bull as its point. They bellowed with fright and made a tremendous crashing as they raced over the mile that divided them from the Indian camp. Warriors heard the uproar, like the bursting of a storm in the night, and leaped to their feet.

Now Henry fairly surpassed every effort that he had made hitherto. He leaped more wildly than ever, and redoubled his fierce shouting. He was so close upon the flank of the last buffaloes that they felt the torches singeing their hair, and, mad with fear lest they go to their buffalo heaven sooner than they wished they charged directly upon the Indian camp.

The wild yells of the warriors joined with Henry's shouts. Alloway, Cartwright and the others leaped up to see the red eyes, the short crooked horns and the huge, humped shoulders of the buffaloes bearing down upon them. Nothing could withstand that rush of mighty bodies and white men and Indians alike ran for their lives.

The buffaloes came up against the river, and blocked by its deep flood, turned, and, running over the camp again, crashed away toward the west. Henry, stopping at a convenient distance, tossed his torches into the river, and taking the rifle from his back sank into the bushes. Here he laughed once more, under his breath, but with the most intense delight. It was the hugest joke of all.

Without any great danger to himself he had made the buffaloes serve him, and he could still hear them bellowing and crashing in their frantic flight. Although no lives had been lost, everything in the camp had been trodden flat. All of their cooking utensils had been smashed, many of their rifles had been broken, and, the canoes drawn upon the bank, had been ground under the hoofs of the buffaloes. A hurricane could not have made a wreck more complete.

Henry saw Alloway emerge from the forest and come back to the scene of ruin. He had taken off his coat before he lay down, but only fragments of it remained now. He was red with anger and he swore violently. Yellow Panther and Red Eagle had lost their blankets, but, whatever they felt, they kept it to themselves. They looked upon the trodden camp, but they did not lose their dignity.

"What is this? What is this? What is this?" stuttered Alloway in his wrath.

"We seem, sir, to have been run over by a herd of buffaloes," said Wyatt, smoothly.

"And does this sort of thing happen often in these woods?"

"I can't say that I've heard of such a case before, but even if it's a single instance we're the victims of it."

Alloway glared at Wyatt, but he knew that he could not afford to quarrel with the young renegade, who had great influence with the tribes. He picked up the fragments of his red coat and looked at them ruefully.

"I didn't know that the herds were ever so large in this forest country," he said to Blackstaffe.

"It's seldom so," said the older renegade.

"Is it their habit to rise up at midnight and gallop over men's camps?"

"It is not."

"Then how do you account for such behavior?"

Blackstaffe shrugged his shoulders and spoke a few words in their own tongue to the chiefs. Then he turned back to Colonel Alloway.

"The chiefs tell me," he said, "that the buffaloes were driven by a demon, an immense figure, preceded by whirling circles of fire. The evil spirit, they say, is upon them."

"And do you believe such nonsense?"

"A continuous life in the deep woods gives one new beliefs. I thought I caught a glimpse of such a figure, but when I tried for a second look it was gone. But whether right or wrong you can see what has happened. Our camp has been destroyed and with it most of the canoes. We have lost much, and the Indians are greatly alarmed. It is superstition, not fear, that has affected them."

"In my opinion," said Braxton Wyatt, "it was a trick of Henry Ware's. He drove those buffaloes down upon us."

"Very likely," said Blackstaffe, "but you can't persuade the Indians so."

"Nor me either," said Alloway gruffly. "You can't tell me that a backwoods youth can do so much."

"But," said Blackstaffe, "our scows were blown up, our lashed canoes were sunk, and now the buffaloes have been driven over us. It couldn't be chance. I think with Wyatt that it was Ware, but the chiefs are not willing to stay here longer. They demand that we return to the great camp in the morning, and that we abandon the attempt to take the cannon up the river."

"Which means an infinite amount of work with the ax," growled Alloway. "Well, let it be so, if it must, but I will not move tonight for anything. At least grass and trees are left, and I can sleep on one and under the other."

The chiefs, Yellow Panther and Red Eagle, thought they ought to march at once, but they yielded to Alloway who was master of the great guns with which they hoped to smash the palisades around the settlements. Complete cooperation between white man and red man was necessary for the success of the expedition, and sometimes it was necessary for one to placate the other.

They chose places anew upon ground that looked like a lost field of battle. The buffaloes had practically trampled the camp into the earth. The Indians had lost most of their blankets and in taking the canoes from the river and putting them upon the bank to escape one form of destruction they had merely met another. But they did the best they could, seeking the most comfortable places for sleep, and resolved to secure rest for the remainder of the night.

But Red Eagle and Yellow Panther, great chiefs though they were, were troubled by bad dreams which came straight from Ha-nis-ja-o-no-geh, the dwelling place of the Evil Minded. An enemy whom they could not see or hear, but whose presence they felt, was near. He had brought misfortune upon them and he would bring more. They awoke from their dreams and sat up. The white men were sleeping heavily, but then white men were often foolish in the forest.

Everything that stirred in the wilderness had a voice for the Indian. North wind or south wind, east wind or west wind all said something to him. The flowing of the river, and the sounds made by animals in the darkness had their meaning. Yellow Panther and Red Eagle were great chiefs, mighty on the war path, filled with the lore of their tribes, and they knew that Manitou expressed himself in many ways. They spoke together and when they compared their bad dreams straight from Ha-nis-ja-o-no-geh they felt apprehension. The wind was blowing from the northwest, and its voice was a threat. Then came the weird cry of an owl from a point north of them, and they did not know whether it was a real owl or the same evil spirit that had sent the bad dreams.

The two chiefs, wary and brave, were troubled. They could fight the seen, but the unseen was a foe whom no warrior knew how to meet. Then they heard the owl again, but from another point, farther to the west, and after a while the cry came from a point almost due west.

They sent the boldest and most skillful warrior to scout the forest in that direction and they waited long for his return, but he never came back. When the second hour after his departure had been completed the chiefs awakened all the others and announced that they would start at once for the great camp.

Alloway growled and cursed under his breath.

"What is it?" he said to Braxton Wyatt, who had been talking with Red Eagle and Yellow Panther. "Can't we finish in peace what's left of the night?"

"We must yield to the chiefs, sir," said Wyatt. "If we don't there will be trouble, and the whole expedition will fail before it's fairly started. While we were asleep they heard an owl hoot from several different points of the compass, and they think it an omen of evil. They may be right, because a scout, a man of uncommon skill, whom they sent out two hours ago with instructions to return in an hour or less, has not come back. If you consider the misfortunes that have befallen us tonight, you can't blame 'em."

The hoot of the owl, much nearer, came suddenly through the forest. To the chiefs and to the white men as well it had a long menacing note. It was an omen of ill and it came from the Place of Evil Dreams. Yellow Panther and Red Eagle, great chiefs, victors in many a forest foray, shuddered. Fear struck like daggers at their hearts.

"Gray Beaver, our scout, will never come back," said Yellow Panther, and Red Eagle nodded.

The surcharged air affected Alloway and the other white men also. The obvious fears of the chiefs and the black wilderness about him created an atmosphere that the colonel could not resist. He glanced at the dark files of the trees and listened to the low moaning of the river as it flowed past. Then from a point in the south came that warning, plangent cry of the evil bird. Perspiration stood out on the brows of the chiefs and Alloway himself was shaken. Superstition and fears bred of the wilderness and its darkness entered into his own soul. The place suddenly became hateful to him.

"Let us go," he said. "Perhaps it is better that we rejoin the main force."

Braxton Wyatt had his own opinion, but he was as willing as the others to depart. He felt that on this expedition he would be safer with the warriors all about him. He had saved his own rifle from the rush of the herd, and putting it on his shoulder he fell in behind the chiefs.

The whole party started, but they found that although they had left an evil place they had also begun an evil march. The owl, which the Indians were quite sure contained the soul of some great dead warrior, followed and continually menaced them. Its cry was heard from one side and then from the other. Colonel Alloway, a brave man, though choleric and cruel, was exasperated beyond endurance. He raged and swore as they marched through the dark thickets, the Indians moving lightly and surely, while he often stumbled. He insisted at last that they stop and take action.

"Do you think this is a real owl following us?" he said to Wyatt, whom he invariably used as an interpreter.

"I think it is Ware, of whom I told you."

"You're as bad in your way as the Indians are in theirs. Why, the fellow would be superhuman!"

"That would not keep it from being true."

Alloway knew from Wyatt's tone that he meant what he said.

"We must hunt down this forest rover!" he exclaimed. "I can see that he is striking a heavy blow at the Indians through their superstitions."

"No doubt of that, sir."

"Tell the chiefs for me that we must send out a half dozen trailers while the rest of us remain here. I'm not as used as you are to midnight marches in the forest, and every bone in me aches."

Wyatt translated and Yellow Panther and Red Eagle consented. A half-dozen of the best trailers slipped away in different directions in the forest, and the rest sat down in a group. They waited a long time and heard nothing. The owl did not cry, nor did any human shout come from the haunted depths of the wilderness.

"At least they've driven him away," said Alloway to Cartwright.

"I think so, sir."

Out of the forest, low at first, but swelling on a long triumphant note, came the solemn voice of the owl. Alloway, despite himself, shuddered. The sinister cry expressed victory. His own mind, like those of the Indians, had become attuned to the superstitions and fears bred of ignorance and the dark. His heart paused, and when it began its work again the beat was heavy.

A darker blot appeared on the darkness and two warriors, bearing a third, came through the bushes. The man whom they bore was a dark-browed, cruel savage who had carried the scalp of a white woman at his belt. But he would hunt or scalp no more. He had been cloven from brow to chin with the blow of a tomahawk wielded by an arm mighty like that of Hercules. Colonel Alloway looked upon the slain savage and shuddered again.

"Ask them how it happened," he said to Wyatt.

The young renegade, after speaking with the Indians, replied:

"Black Fox, the dead warrior, turned aside to look into a willow thicket. The others heard the beginning of a cry, that is one that was checked suddenly, and the sound of a blow. Then they found Black Fox as you see him there."

"And the one who struck him down?"

"There was no trace of him, but I, at least, have no doubt about him. Colonel Alloway, sir, I tell you he is the greatest forester that ever lived. He has all the different kinds of strength of the red man and the white man united, and something more, a power which I once heard a learned man say must have belonged to people when they had no weapons but clubs, and beasts far bigger than any of our time roamed the woods. It must have been a sort of feeling or sense that we can't understand, like the nose of a hound, and this Ware has it."

"Pshaw! Pshaw! Pshaw!" exclaimed Alloway violently. But Wyatt saw that his violence of speech was assumed to hide his own growing belief. The two chiefs beckoned to him, and he talked with them briefly. Then he turned to Alloway.

"Red Eagle and Yellow Panther ask me to say to you, sir, that they'll send no more warriors into the forest. The Evil Spirit is there and while they're ready to fight men they will not fight devils."

"I don't blame 'em," said Alloway reluctantly. "We've been outwitted and made fools of, and the best thing we can do is to get back to the great camp as soon as we can. Tell the chiefs we're ready to march."

But the way was long and the night was still black. The cry of the owl came several times, first on the right and then on the left. Every time he heard it the heart of the colonel beat with anger, tinged with awe. It was a strange world into which he had come, and while he would not have acknowledged it to another, he knew that he was afraid. And afraid of what? Of a single figure, lurking somewhere in the dusk, that seemed able to strike at any moment wherever and whenever it wished.

The band, with its chiefs, its white men and its renegades marched on, the two English officers panting from such unusual exertion, and tripping often as they grew weaker. It hurt Alloway to ask them to stop and let him rest, and he put off the evil moment as long as he could, but at last, as his breath became shorter and shorter, he was compelled to do so.

The chiefs acquiesced silently and the whole band stopped. Alloway sat down on one of those fallen logs to be found everywhere in the primeval forest, and his breath came in long painful sobs. He was just a little too stout for wilderness work, that is for the marching part of it, and he was hurt cruelly in both body and spirit. As his general weakness grew, the cry of the owl directly in their path and not far away was like fire touched to an open wound.

"Can't some of the warriors go forward, ambush and shoot that fiend?" he exclaimed in desperation to Blackstaffe.

"You saw what happened when we tried it an hour ago," replied the renegade. "In the darkness one man has an opportunity over many. He knows that all are his enemies, and he can shoot the moment he hears a sound or sees a rustle in the bush. Besides, sir, we are confronted, as Wyatt has told you, by the one foe who is the most dangerous in all the world to us. There is something about him that passes almost beyond belief. I'm not a coward, as these Indians will tell you, but nothing could induce me to go into the forest in search of him."

Alloway made no reply, but he took off a cocked hat that he wore even in the wilderness, and began to fan his heated face. A rifle cracked suddenly, and the hat flew from his hand into the air. The Indians uttered a long wailing cry like the Seneca "Oonah," but did not move from their places or show any sign that they wished to pursue.

The colonel's empty hand remained poised in the air, and he gazed with mingled anger and wonder at his hat, lying upon the ground, and perforated neatly by a bullet. Wyatt, Blackstaffe and Cartwright looked at him but said nothing. Even Wyatt felt a thrill of awe.

"That, sir, was a warning," he said at last. "He could have shot you as easily."

"But why don't the warriors pursue? He could not have been much more than a hundred yards away!"

"They're afraid, sir, and I don't blame 'em."

Wyatt himself showed apprehension. He knew the bitter hatred the borderers felt toward all renegades. The name of Girty was already one of loathing. Blackstaffe was another who could expect little mercy, if he ever fell into their hands, and Wyatt himself knew that he had fully earned the Kentucky bullet. He did not feel the superstition of the warrior, but he regarded the gloomy depths of the forest with just as much terror. There was no reason why the silent marksman who hung upon them should not pick him out for a target.

They came to a creek running three feet deep, but they waded it and then stood for a minute or two on the bank, wringing the water out of their clothing. Colonel Alloway still cursed under his breath, and bemoaned the fate that had befallen him. It seemed a cruel jest that he, who had served in Flanders and Germany, in open country that had been civilized many centuries, should be sent from Detroit to march as an ally of savages in that enormous and unknown wilderness.

The cry of the owl came from a point straight ahead, and not more than four hundred yards away. Not a savage moved. But Alloway's whole frame shook with furious anger. It was preposterous that they should be harried so on their march by a single enemy. Once more he turned to Wyatt and said:

"Can't we spread out in some manner and catch this impudent fellow? Are thirty men to be driven all night through the woods by a single border rover?"

"I can put your question to the chiefs," Wyatt replied, "but I doubt whether anything will come of it."

He talked a little with Yellow Panther and Red Eagle and found that they were willing to try again. They were pursued by a devil, but, mysterious as he was, they would send forth the warriors, and perhaps they might trap him. They gave the signal and a dozen savages plunged at once into the bush, spreading out like a fan, and advancing toward the point from which the owl had sent his haunting cry.

The others waited a long time by the creek, and Alloway's rage still burned. It was past endurance that a gentleman and an officer should be hunted through the woods in such a manner, insulted even by a bullet through his fine cocked hat, and hope being the father of belief, he was sure that the warriors would finish him this time.

He heard a sudden sharp report in the woods behind them, on the other side of the creek that they had crossed, and a bullet buried itself in the tree against which he was leaning, not very far from his face. He uttered a deep oath, but Yellow Panther and Red Eagle signaled to their forces to take the trail once more. The one in whom the Evil Spirit dwelled and who had come to mock them could not be caught. They would waste no more time, but would march as fast as they could to the main camp. They sent out cries that called in the warriors and then they set off at a great pace.

But all through the remainder of the night the Evil Spirit hung upon them, sometimes beside them, and sometimes behind them, and the terror of the warriors grew. Upon more than one face the war paint was damp with perspiration, and Colonel Alloway, his red face dripping, was forced to keep up with them, stride for stride.

Their terror did not diminish at all until the daylight came. Red Eagle and Yellow Panther, great chiefs, were glad to see the glow over the eastern forest that told of the rising sun. Even then they did not stop, but kept on at high speed, until the morning was flooded with light, when they stopped for fresh breath.

The English officers threw themselves upon the ground and gasped. They were not ashamed to show now to the Indians that they were weary almost to death.

"I think I left at least twenty pounds in that cursed forest," said Alloway.

"I'm not anxious for another such march," said Cartwright with sympathy. "But, sir, you can see a big smoke rising not more than a mile ahead. That must be the main camp."

"It is," said Braxton Wyatt, "and there are some of the scouts coming to meet us."

Far behind them rose the long hoot of the owl, but Wyatt knew that they would hear it no more that day. He regarded the English officers grimly. They had patronized him and Blackstaffe, and now they made the poorest showing of all. In the woods they were lost.

Alloway and Cartwright rose after a long rest and limped into the camp. The colonel reflected that he had lost prestige but there were the cannon. The warriors could not afford to march against Kentucky without them, and only he and his men knew how to use them. In a huge camp, with a brilliant sun driving away many of the fancies that night and the forest brought, his full sense of importance returned. He began to talk now of pushing forward at once with the guns, in order that they might strike before the settlers were aware.



CHAPTER VI

THE KING WOLF

When the two chiefs, Alloway and the smaller force, were driven into the great camp, Henry turned aside into the forest and felt that he had done well. All the fanciful spirit of the younger world created by the Greeks had been alive in him that night. He had been a young Hercules at play and he had enjoyed his grim jokes. He was not only a young Hercules, he was a primeval son of the forest to whom the wilderness was a book in which he read.

He went back a little on their path, and he marked where the European leader had fallen twice through sheer weariness or because he could not see well enough in the dusk to evade trailing vines. A red thread or two on a bush showed that he had torn his uniform in falling, and the young woods rover laughed. He could not recall another such gratifying night, one in which he had served his own people and also had annoyed the enemy beyond endurance.

He went deep into the forest, hiding his trail as usual, and lay down in a covert to rest, while he ate some of the venison that he had left. Here he saw again his friends of the little trails, with which he was so familiar. The shy rabbits were creeping through the bushes and instinctively they seemed to have no fear of him. Two little birds not ten feet over his head were singing in intense rivalry. Their tiny throats swelled out as they poured forth a brilliant volume of song, and Henry, lying perfectly still, looked up at them and admired them. It would have required keen eyes like his to have picked them out, each of whom a green leaf would have covered, but he saw them and recognized them as friends of his. He did not know them personally, but since all their tribe were his comrades they must be so too.

Although he was one of mighty prowess with the rifle, and a taker of game, Henry always felt his kinship with the little people of the forest. No one of them ever fell wantonly at his hands. The gay birds in their red or blue plumage and all the soberer garbs between, were safe from him. It seemed that they too at times recognized him as a friend since he would hear the flutter of tiny wings over his head or by his ear, and see them pass in a flash of flame, or of blue or of brown.

Those old tales of Paul floated once more through his mind. He had no doubt that Paul was right. The Biblical six thousand years might be six million years as men thought of them now. And he knew himself, from his own eye, that huge monsters, larger than any that lived now, did roam the earth once. He had seen their bones in hundreds at the Big Bone Lick, where they had come to get the salty water scores of thousands of years ago. It seemed to him then that in those days men and the little animals and the little birds must have been allies against the monsters. Here, in the woods so far from civilization, this friendship must be continued. The light wind which so often sang to him through the leaves sprang up and joined its note to that of the birds. The fierce, wild spirit that had made him haunt the flying trail the night before, and that had sent the tomahawk so deep, departed. He felt singularly friendly to all created beings.

Lying on his back and looking upward into the green roof, Henry listened to the forest concert. The two over his head were still singing with utmost vigor, but others had joined. From all the trees and bushes about him came a volume of song, and the shadow of no swooping hawk or eagle fell across the sky to disturb them.

He had a little bread in his pouch, and he threw some crumbs on the grass a few feet away. The hand and arm that had cast them sank by his side, remained absolutely still and he waited. The wonder that he was wishing so intensely came to pass. A bird, brown and tiny, alighted on the grass and pecked one of the crumbs. Beyond a doubt, this was a bold bird, a leader among his kind, an explorer and discoverer. He had never seen a crumb before, but he picked up one in his tiny bill and found it good. Then he announced the news to all the world that could hear his voice, and there was much fluttering of small wings in the air.

More birds, red, green, yellow and brown, settled upon the grass and began to pick the crumbs eagerly. It was new food, but they found it good. Nor did they pay any attention to the great figure in buckskin dyed green lying so near and so still. The instinct given to them in place of reason, which warned them of the presence of an enemy, gave them no such warning now, because there was none against which they could be warned.

Henry always believed that the birds felt his kinship that morning, or perhaps it was the crumbs that drew them to a friend and gave them hearts without fear. One of them, perhaps the original bold explorer, seeking vainly for another crumb, hopped upon his bare hand as it lay in the grass, but feeling its warmth flew away a foot, hung hovering a moment or two, then came back and took a peck.

It was not sufficient to hurt Henry's toughened hand, and exerting the great strength of his will over his body he continued to lie perfectly motionless. The bird, satisfied that this food was beyond his powers, stood motionless for a few moments, then flapped his wings two or three times to indicate that he was a prince and an ornament of the forest, and began to pour forth the fullest and deepest song that Henry had yet heard.

It gave him a curious thrill as the bird, perched on his hand, and extended to his utmost, sang his song. The other birds having finished all the crumbs stood chirping and twittering in the grass. Then, as if by a given signal, all of them, including the one on Henry's hand, united in a single volume of song and flew up into the crevices of the green roof. He felt that a serenade had been given to him, one that few human kings ever enjoyed. The little flying people of the forest had united to do him honor, and he was pleased, hugely pleased.

They were hidden from him now in the green leaves, but where the sky was clear he saw a sudden, dark shadow against the blue. He sprang up in an instant and raised his rifle. But it was too late for the eagle to stop. The heavy figure with the tearing beak and claws swooped downward, and there was silence and terror among the green leaves. But before the eagle could clutch or rend, Henry's rifle spoke with unerring aim, and the body fell to the ground dead.

He was sorry. He did not like his morning party to be broken up in such a manner, and for his guests to be disturbed and frightened. Nor was it wise to fire his rifle in that neighborhood. But he had acted on an impulse that he did not regret. He looked at the beak and claws of the dead eagle and he was glad that he had shot him. The fierce bird had broken up his forest idyl, and knowing that he could stay no longer he set off at a great pace, again curving about in a course that led him somewhat toward the house in the cliff.

He crossed several trails and he became rather anxious. Doubtless they were made by hunters, because the Indians while they remained at the great camp would eat prodigiously, and bands would be continually searching the forest for buffalo and deer. It was from these that the chief danger came. He suspected also that their proximity had compelled Shif'less Sol and the others to keep close within their little shelter. He doubted whether he could reach them that day.

The need of rest made itself felt at last, and, hiding his trail, he crept into another small but very dense thicket. He felt that he was within a lair and his kinship with bird and beast was renewed. No wolf or bear could lie snugger in its den than he.

He put his rifle by his side, where he could reach it in a second, and was soon asleep. A prowling bear came into the far edge of the thicket, sniffed the man-smell and went away, not greatly alarmed, but feeling that it was better, in case of doubt, to avoid the cause of the doubt. Two Indians, carrying the cloven body of a deer, passed within three hundred yards of the sleeping youth, but they saw no trail and went on to the camp with the spoils of the hunt.

Henry slept lightly, but a long time. The forest quality was still strong within him. Although his sleep had all its restoring power, the lightest noise in the undergrowth near him would have awakened him. But he slept on through the morning, and into the afternoon.

A second party of savage hunters passed, five men carrying wild turkeys, and they too did not dream that the enemy whom they dreaded so much lay near. They had left the camp only that morning, and, the warriors arriving from the river, had told before they left how they had been pursued all through the night by one upon whom the Evil Spirit had descended. Even in the day they would have avoided this being, and the old medicine men who were in the camp were making charms to drive him away.

It was the most brilliant part of the afternoon now. Nevertheless they looked with a tinge of superstitious terror at the forests. The highly imaginative mind of the Indian, clothes nearly all things with personality, and for them an evil wind was blowing. The events of the preceding night had been colored and enlarged by those who told them. One or two had seen the form, gigantic and flaming-eyed, that had hung upon their trail, and these warriors, fearing that they too might see it, and in the open day, hung close as they bore their load of turkeys back to the camp.

Henry did not awake until the west was growing dim, and then after the fashion of the borderers he awoke all at once, that is, every nerve and faculty was alive at the same time. Nothing had invaded his haunt in the brushwood. His keen eyes showed him at once that no bush had been displaced, and, with his rifle ready, he walked out into the opening.

He must get back into the little fortress that night. He had been gone so long that Shif'less Sol and the others, although having the utmost confidence in his powers, would begin to worry about him. Yet he knew that it was unwise to approach the place until night came. Delay was all the more necessary, because while he saw on the northern horizon the smoke from the great camp, he saw also a smaller smoke rising from another camp nearer their fortress. It was so near, in truth, that the four must find it necessary to hide close within the walls.

The second smoke aroused Henry's apprehension. Perhaps a portion of the camp had been moved forward merely to be nearer water or for some kindred reason, but that did not keep it from being nearer the stone fortress, nor from impeding his entrance into it. Yet he believed that he could slip past. His skill had triumphed over greater tests.

After dark he began his journey, buoyant and strong from his long sleep, and continued his wide circuit intending to approach his destination from the west. Distance did not amount to much to the borderer, and his long, easy gait carried him on, mile after mile.

It was another night, brilliant with moon and stars, and Henry was able to see the larger trail of smoke still traced on the northern horizon. His sense of direction was perfect, but he looked up now and then at the smoky bar, always keeping it on his right, and three or four hours after sunset he began to curve in towards his friends. The country into which he had come was similar in character to that which he had left, heavy forest, rolling hills and many creeks and brooks. He had never been in that immediate region before, and he judged by the amount of game springing up before him that it had not been visited by anybody in a long time. It was always a cause of wonder to him that a region as large as Kentucky, four fifths the size of all England, should be totally without Indian inhabitants.

The fact that Indians from the North and Indians from the South were said to fight there when on their hunting expeditions, and that hence they preferred to leave it as a barrier or neutral ground, did not wholly account for the fact to him. Farther north and farther south the Indians occupied all the country and fought with one another, but in this beautiful and fertile land there was no village, and not even a stray lodge.

He had often asked himself the reason, and while he was asking it he came to a long low mound, covered with trees of smaller growth than those in the surrounding forest. At first he took it for a hill just like the others, but its shape did not seem natural, and, despite the importance of time he looked again, and once more. Then he walked a little way up the mound and his moccasined foot struck lightly against something hard. He stooped, and catching hold of the impediment pulled from the earth a broken piece of pottery.

It seemed old, very old, and wishing to rest a little, Henry sat down and gazed at it. The Indians of the present day could not possibly have made it, and it was impossible also that any white settler or hunter could have left it there. He dropped the fragment and rising, looked farther, finding two more pieces buried almost to the edge, but which his strong hands pulled out. They seemed to him of the same general workmanship as the others, and he surmised that the long mound upon which he was standing had been thrown up by the hand of man.

What was inside the mound? Perhaps the skeletons of men dead a thousand years or more, men more civilized than the Indians, but gone forever, and leaving no trace, save some broken pieces of pottery. Possibly the Indians themselves had destroyed these people, and they did not come here to live because they feared the ghosts of the slain. But it was no question that he could solve. He would talk about it later with Paul and meanwhile he must find some way to reach the others.

He threw down the pottery and left the hill, but, as he swung swiftly onward, the hill and its contents did not disappear from his mind. He had a strange sense of mystery. The new land about him might be an old, old land. He had never thought of it, except as forest and canebrake, in which the Indians had always roamed, but evidently it was not so. It was strange that races could disappear completely.

But as he raced on, the feeling for these things fell from him. He was not so much for the past as Paul was. He was essentially of the present, and, dealing with wild men in a wild country, he was again a wild man himself. Among the Indians at the great camp or about it there was not one in such close kinship with the forest as he. Despite danger and his anxiety to reach his comrades, he felt all its beauty and majesty, in truth fairly reveled in it.

He noticed the different trees, the oaks, the elms, the maples, the walnuts, the hickories, the sycamores, the willows at the edges of the stream, the dogwoods, and all the other kinds which made up the immeasurable forest. They were in the early but full foliage of spring, and the light wind brought odors that were like a perfumed breath.

It was past midnight, when he stopped to enjoy again the fine flavor of his kingdom. Then he suddenly lay flat among the dead leaves of the year before, and thrust forward the barrel of his rifle. He had heard a footfall, the footfall of a moccasin, not much heavier than the fall of a leaf, and every nerve and faculty within him was concentrated to meet the new danger.

The sound had come from his right, and raising his head just a little he looked, but saw nothing, that is nothing new in the waving forest. Yet Henry was sure that a man was there. His ear would not deceive him. Doubtless it was a stray hunter or scout from the bands, and, while he did not fear him, he was annoyed by the delay. It might keep him from reaching his comrades that night.

He waited a long time, using all the patience that he had learned, and he began to believe that his ear after all might have deceived him. Perhaps it had been merely a rabbit in the undergrowth, but while he was debating with himself he heard a faint stir in the bush, and he knew that it was made by a man seeking a new position.

Then his intuition, the power that came from an extreme development of the five senses, reinforced by will, gave him an idea. Still lying on his back he uttered the lonesome howl of the wolf, but very low. He waited a moment or two, eager to know if his intuition had told him truly, and back came the wolf's low but lone cry. He gave the second call and the cry of the wolf came in like answer.

Then he stood up with rifle at trail and walked boldly forward. A tall figure, rifle also at trail, emerged from the bush and advanced to meet him. Two hands met in the strong clasp of those who had shared a thousand dangers and who had never failed each other.

"I thought when I made the call that it would be you, Sol," said Henry.

"An' I knowed it must be you, Henry," said the shiftless one, showing his double row of shining white teeth, "'cause you're the only one in the woods who kin understan' our signals."

"And that means that Paul, Long Jim and Tom are safe in the cave."

"When I left two nights ago, hevin' gone back thar after we separated, they wuz safe, but whether they are now I can't tell. Decidin' that they wuz foulin' the water too much, part o' the band has moved up to a place mighty close to our own snug house. They don't know yet that the hole in the wall is thar, but ef they stay long they're boun' to run acrost it. That's why I've come out lookin' fur you, an' mighty glad I am that I've found you. I'd a notion you'd take this circuit, after doin' all the deviltry you've done."

The shiftless one's mouth parted in a wide grin of admiration. The two rows of white teeth shone brightly.

"Henry," he said, "you're shorely the wild catamount o' the mountains."

"Why?"

"Well, I'm somethin' o' a scout an' trailer, ez you know, an' that ain't no boastin'. I've been hangin' 'roun' the Injun camp, an' they're terrible stirred up. An evil sperrit has been doin' 'em a power o' harm an' I know that evil sperrit is you. Ef it wuzn't fur them cannon on which they build such big hopes the chiefs would take all their warriors and go home. But the white men are urgin' 'em on. Henry, you're shorely the king o' these woods. How'd you stir 'em up so?"

Henry modestly told him all that he had done, and the shiftless one chuckled again and again, as proud of his comrade's deeds as if he had done them himself.

"But the Indians will march against Kentucky?" said Henry. "You don't doubt that, do you?"

"Yes, they'll go. Hevin' brought the cannon so fur they won't turn back, but mebbe we kin hold 'em a while longer. There are tricks an' tricks, an' we kin work some o' 'em."

"And it's our object to stop those cannon. Unless they have 'em we can beat the Indians off as we did last year, even if they are led by the English."

"So we kin, Henry, an' we'll git them guns yet. Scoutin' 'roun' thar camp I learned enough to know that you've broke up thar plan o' tryin' to carry 'em part o' the way by the river. You must hev done mighty slick work thar, Henry. The warriors are plum' shore now that river is ha'nted. It's all the way through the woods now fur them cannon, an' the English will hev to use the axes most o' the time."

"Then we'll be going back as fast as we can. I want to tell you again, Sol, that your face was mighty welcome."

"I ain't no beauty," grinned the shiftless one, "but them that's bringin' help do be welcome when they come. That's the reason you looked so pow'ful well to me, Henry, 'cause I wuz gettin' mighty lonesome, prowlin' 'roun' in these woods all by myself, an' no comp'ny to call, 'cept them that would roast me alive when they'd j'in me."

"The cliff is straight north, isn't it?"

"Jest about. But thar's an Injun band in the way. They're jerkin' a lot o' venison fur the main camp, but bein' ez you've stirred 'em up so they're keepin' a mighty good watch too. You know we don't want no fights, we jest want to travel on ez peaceful ez runnin' water."

"That's so, Sol, but it means a much farther curve to the west."

"Then we've got to take it. It ain't hard for you an' me. We've got steel wire for muscles in our legs, and the night is clear, cool an' life-givin'. Paul hez talked 'bout parks in the Old World, but we've got here a bigger an' finer park than any in Europe or Asyer, or fur that matter than Afriker or that new continent, Australyer. An' thar ain't any other park that hez got so many trees in it ez ourn, or ez much big game all fur the takin'. Now lead on, Henry, an' we'll go to our new home."

"No, you lead, Sol. I've been on a big strain, an' I'd like to follow for a while."

"O' course you would, you poor little peaked thing. I ought to hev thought o' that when I spoke. Never out in the woods afore by hisself an' nigh scared to death by the trees an' the dark. But jest you come on. I'll lead you an' I won't let no squirrel or rabbit hurt you neither."

Henry laughed. The humor and unction of the shiftless one always amused him.

"Go ahead, Sol," he said, "and I'll promise to keep close behind you, where nothing will harm me."

Thus they set off, Sol in front and Henry five feet away, treading in his footsteps.

"There wuz a time when I'd hev been afraid o' the dark," said Shif'less Sol, whose conversational powers were great. "You've been to the Big Bone Lick, an' so hev I, an' we've seen the bones o' the monsters that roamed the earth afore the flood, a long time afore. I wouldn't hev believed that such critters ever tramped around our globe ef I hadn't seen their bones. I come acrost a little salt lick last night—we may see it in passin' afore mornin'—but thar wuz big bones 'roun' it too. I measured myself by 'em an' geewhillikins, Henry, what critters them wuz! Ef I'd been caught out o' my cave after night an' one o' them things got after me I'd hev been so skeered that I'd hev dropped my stone club 'cause my hands trembled so, my teeth would hev rattled together in reg'lar tunes, an' I'd hev run so fast that I'd only hev touched the tops o' the hills, skippin' all the low ones too, an' by the time I reached the mouth o' my cave, I'd be goin' so swift that I'd run clear out o' my clothes, leavin' 'em fur the monster to trample on an' then chaw up, me all the while settin' inside the cave safe, but tremblin' all over, an' with no appetite. Them shore wuz lively times fur our race, Henry, an' I guess we did a pow'ful lot o' runnin' an' hidin'."

"It was certainly time to run, Sol, when a tiger eight feet high and fifteen feet long got after you, or a mammoth or a mastodon twenty feet high and fifty feet long was feeling around in the bushes for you with a trunk that could pick you up and throw you a mile."

"Henry, ef we wuzn't in a hurry I'd stop here an' give thanks."

"What for?"

"'Cause I didn't live in them times, when the beast wuz bigger an' mightier than the man. I guess stone caves that run back into mountains 'bout a mile wuz the most pop'lar an' high-priced. Guess those boys an' gals didn't go out much an' dance on the green, ez they do back East. I'd a heap ruther hunt the buff'ler than that fifteen foot tiger o' yours, Henry."

"So had I, Sol. If those beasts were living nowadays we wouldn't be roaming through the forest as we are now. We have only the Indians to fear."

"An' thar's a lot about them to be afeard of at times, ez you an' me know, Henry."

"If we keep on this curve, Sol, about what time do you think we ought to reach the boys?"

"Afore moonrise, jest about when the night is darkest, 'less somethin' gits in the way. Here's another branch, Henry. Guess we'd better wade in it a right smart distance. You can't ever be too keerful about your trail."

The branch, or brook, as it would have been called in older communities, was rather wide, about six inches deep and flowing over a smooth, gravelly bed. It was flowing in the general direction in which they wished to go, and they walked in the stream a full half mile. Then they emerged upon the bank, careless of wet feet and wet ankles, which they knew would soon dry under severe exercise, and continued their swift journey.

The curiosity of the shiftless one about the primeval world had passed for the time, and like Henry he was concentrating all his energy and attention upon the present, which was full enough of work and danger. He and the young Hercules together made a matchless pair. He was second only to Henry in the skill and lore of the wilderness. He was a true son of the forest, and, though uneducated in the bookish sense, he was so full of wiles and cunning that he was the Ulysses of the five, and as such his fame had spread along the whole border, and among the Indian tribes. Hidden perhaps by his lazy manner, but underneath that yellow thatch of his the shiftless one was a thinker, a deep thinker, and a nobler thinker than the one who sat before Troy town, because his thoughts were to save the defenseless.

"Henry," he said, "we're followed."

Henry glanced back, and in the moonlit dusk he saw a score of forms, enlarged in the shadows, their eyes red and their teeth bare.

"A wolf pack!" he exclaimed.

"Shore ez you live," replied the shiftless one. "Reckon they've been follerin' us ever since we left the branch. Mebbe they never saw men afore an' don't know nothin' 'bout guns that kill at a distance, an' ag'in mebbe they've been driv off thar huntin' grounds by the warriors, an' think we kin take the place o' their reg'lar game."

"Anyway I don't like it."

"Neither do I. Look at that old fellow in the lead. Guess he's called a giant among 'em. I kin see the slaver fallin' from his mouth. He's thinkin' o' you, Henry, 'cause there's more meat on you than there is on me."

"I don't know about that. You'd make a fine dish for the table of the wolf king. Roasted and served up whole they'd save you for the juicy finish, the last gorgeous touch to the feast."

"Don't talk that way, Henry. You make me shiver all over. I ain't afeard o' a wolf, but ef I didn't hev a rifle, an' you wuzn't with me, I'd be plum' skeered at them twenty back thar, follerin' us lookin' at us an' slaverin'."

The shiftless one shook his fist at the king wolf, an enormous beast, the largest that they had ever seen in Kentucky. The whole troop was following them, their light feet making no noise in the grass and leaves, but their red eyes and white teeth always gleaming in the moonlight. They were showing an uncommon daring. Lone hunters had been killed and eaten in the winter by starving wolves, but it was seldom that two men in the spring were followed in such a manner. It became weird, uncanny and ominous.

"I know what's happened," said the shiftless one suddenly. "I kin tell you why they follow us so bold."

"What's the reason, Sol?"

"You know all them 'normous tigers and hijeous monsters we've been talkin' 'bout, that's been dead a hundred thousan' years. Thar souls comin' down through other animals hev gone straight into our pack o' wolves thar. They ain't wolves really. They're big tigers an' mammoths an' sech like."

"I'm not disputing what you say, Sol, because I don't know anything about it, but if it wasn't for raising an alarm I'd shoot that king wolf there, who is following us so close. I can tell by his eyes that he expects to eat us both."

"What kind o' tigers wuz it that Paul said lived long ago, an' growed so monstrous big?"

"Saber-toothed."

"Then that king wolf back thar wuz the king o' the saber-toothed tigers in his time. He wuz twelve feet high and twenty-five feet long an' he could carry off on his shoulder the biggest bull buffaler that ever wuz, an' eat him at a meal."

"That would have been a good deal of a dinner, even for an emperor among saber-toothed tigers."

"But I'm right about that wolf, Henry. I kin see it in his eye, an' them behind him are nigh ez bad. They wuz all saber-toothed tigers in thar time. I reckon that in thar wolf souls or tiger souls, whichever they be, they expect to eat us afore day. I'd like pow'ful well to put a bullet atween the eyes o' thar king—jest ez you said you would, Henry."

"But it's not to be thought of. Sound would travel far on a still night like this, and the warriors might be within hearing. It's hard on the nerves, but we've got to stand it."

They hoped that the wolves would drop the trail soon, but their wish did not come true. However they twisted and turned, whether they went slow or fast, the sinister pack was always there, the king wolf a foot or so in advance, like the point to the head of an arrow. Often the flickering shadows exaggerated him to twice his usual size, and then in truth he suggested his saber-toothed predecessor of long, long ago.

"This is becomin' pow'ful w'arin' to the nerves, Henry," said the shiftless one. "I'd ruther hev a clean fight with a half-dozen warriors than be follered this way. It teches my pride. I've got a mighty lot o' pride, an' it hurts me awful to hev my pride hurt."

"Because we don't shoot or do anything I think they've assumed that we're powerless to fight. Still, there is something about the human odor that deters 'em."

"S'pose you're right, but I'm goin' to try a trick. When you see me stumble, Henry, you go right on, till I'm eight or ten feet behind you."

"All right, Sol, but don't stumble too much."

"I ain't likely to do it at sech a time. Look out, now! Here I stumble!"

He caught his foot in a root, plunged forward, almost fell, recovered his balance slowly and with apparent difficulty. Henry ran on, but in a half minute he turned quickly. With a horrible snarl and yelp the king wolf sprang, and the others behind him sprang also. Henry's rifle leaped to his shoulder, and then the king wolf jumped away, the others following him.

The shiftless one rejoined Henry and they ran a little faster. His face was pale and one or two drops of perspiration fell from it. His breath was longer than mere flight would make it.

"I ain't goin' to try that ag'in, Henry," he said. "No more foolin' with sudden death. He's shorely the big tiger, the biggest o' them all that wuz. Why, when I stumbled he leaped like lightnin'. I didn't think anythin', not even a wolf, could be so quick."

"The rifle frightened them off. They didn't know what it was, but they were afraid it had something to do with wounds and death. Still, they're running a little closer to us than they were. That's about all that's come of your experiment, Sol."

"I ain't goin' to try it over ag'in, Henry, but it shorely begins to look ez ef we'd hev to use the bullets on 'em. I don't think anythin' else will stop 'em."

"A little while longer, Sol, and they may abandon the chase. We must hold our fire just as long as possible. A shot may bring a cloud of the red hornets about us."

The shiftless one was silent. He knew as well as Henry that a shot was unwise. They were bearing back now toward the stone fortress and the Indian camps, and the forests near might be full of warriors. Yet it was a tremendous strain upon one's nerves to be followed in such a manner. The wolves had come so close now that they could hear the light pad of their feet. Once Shif'less Sol picked up a stone and hurled it at the king wolf. The great shaggy beast leaped aside, but it struck a wolf behind him, drawing an angry snarl, in which all the wolves joined.

Henry felt relief when they gave tongue, although the snarl was not loud. Hitherto they had pursued in total silence, which he had deemed unnatural and that angry yelp made them real wolves of the forest again.

"About how far would you say it is now to the cave?" he asked the shiftless one.

"Three or four miles, but with our lope it won't take us long to cover it. What hev you got in mind, Henry?"

"I think we've got to kill the king wolf. I didn't think so a little while ago, but they follow us hoping that some accident, a fall perhaps, will make us their prey."

"Do it then, Henry, an' take all the chances. I'm growin' mighty tired o' bein' follered by wolves that are re'ly tigers. After you shoot, we'll turn to the left an' run ez hard ez we kin."

Henry whirled suddenly about and raised his rifle. The king wolf, as if divining his purpose, sheered to one side, but he was confronting the deadliest marksman in the woods. The muzzle of Henry's rifle followed him, and when he pulled the trigger the bullet crashed through the great beast's skull.

When the king wolf fell dead the others stopped, stricken with terror, but from a point to the east came the long thrilling note of the war whoop. The warriors had heard the shot, and, knowing they would come swiftly to its sound, Henry and the shiftless one, turning due west, ran with amazing speed through the forest.



CHAPTER VII

THE FOREST POETS

Henry and the shiftless one knew that they had drawn danger upon themselves, but they had nothing to regret. The pursuit by the wolves had become intolerable. In time it was bound to unsettle their nerves, and it was better to take the risk from the warriors.

"How far away would you say that war whoop was?" asked Henry.

"'Bout a quarter o' a mile but it'll take 'em some little time to find our trail. An' ef you an' me, Henry, can't leave 'em, ez ef they wuz standin', then we ain't what we used to be."

Presently they heard the war cry a second time, although its note was fainter.

"Hit our trail!" said the shiftless one.

"But they can never overtake us in the night," said Henry. "We've come to stony ground now, and the best trailers in the world couldn't follow you and me over it."

"No," said the shiftless one, with some pride in his voice. "We're not to be took that way, but that band an' mebbe more are in atween us an' our fine house in the cliff, an' we won't get to crawl in our little beds tonight. It ain't to be risked, Henry."

"That's so. We seem to be driven in a circle around the place to which we want to go, but we can afford to wait as well as the Indian army can, and better. Here's another branch and we'd better use it to throw that band off the trail."

They waded in the pebbly bed of the brook for a long distance. Then they walked on stones, leaping lightly from one to another, and, when they came to the forest, thick with grapevines they would often swing from vine to vine over long spaces. Both found an odd pleasure in their flight. They were matching the Indian at his tricks, and when pushed they could do even better. They knew that the trail was broken beyond the hope of recovery, and, late in the night, after passing through hilly country, they sat down to rest.

They were on the slope of the last hill, sitting under the foliage of an oak, and before them lay a wide valley, in which the trees, mostly oaks, were scattered as if they grew in a great park. But the grass everywhere was thick and tall, and down the center flowed a swift creek which in the moonlight looked like molten silver. The uncommon brightness of the night, with its gorgeous clusters of stars, disclosed the full beauty of the valley, and the two fugitives who were fugitives no longer felt it intensely. Henry was an educated youth of an educated stock, and Shif'less Sol, the forest runner, was born with a love and admiration in his soul of Nature in all its aspects.

"Don't it look fine, Henry?" said the shiftless one. "Ef I hed to sleep in a house all the time, which, thanks be, I don't hev to do, I'd build me a cabin right here in this little valley. Ain't it jest the nicest place you ever saw? Unless I've mistook my guess, that's a lot o' buff'ler lyin' down in the grass in front o' us."

"Eight of 'em. I can count 'em," said Henry, "but they're safe from us."

"I wouldn't fire on 'em, not even ef thar wuzn't a warrior within a hundred miles o' us. I don't feel like shootin' at anythin' jest now, Henry."

"It's the valley that makes you feel so peaceful. It has the same effect on me."

"I think I kin see wild flowers down thar bloomin' among the bushes, an' ain't that grass an' them trees fine? an' that is shorely the best creek I've seen. Its water is so pure it looks like silver. I've a notion, Henry, that this wuz the Garden o' Eden."