st go forward alone," whispered Unaco, turning to Paul. "White man
knows not how to go on his belly like the serpent."

"Mahoghany Drake would be inclined to dispute that p'int with 'ee,"
returned Bevan. "However, you know best, so we'll wait till you give us
the signal to advance."

Having directed his white friends to lie down, Unaco divested himself of
all superfluous clothing, and glided swiftly but noiselessly towards the
robber camp, with nothing but a tomahawk in his hand and a
scalping-knife in his girdle. He soon reached the open side of the
wooded hollow, guided thereto by Drake's persistent and evidently
distressing cough. Here it became necessary to advance with the utmost
caution. Fortunately for the success of his enterprise, all the
sentinels that night had been chosen from among the white men. The
consequence was that although they were wide awake and on the _qui
vive_, their unpractised senses failed to detect the very slight sounds
that Unaco made while gliding slowly--inch by inch, and with many an
anxious pause--into the very midst of his foes. It was a trying
situation, for instant death would have been the result of discovery.

As if to make matters more difficult for him just then, Drake's hacking
cough ceased, and the Indian could not make out where he lay. Either
his malady was departing or he had fallen into a temporary slumber!
That the latter was the case became apparent from his suddenly
recommencing the cough. This, however, had the effect of exasperating
one of the sentinels.

"Can't you stop that noise?" he muttered, sternly.

"I'm doin' my best to smother it," said Drake in a conciliatory tone.

Apparently he had succeeded, for he coughed no more after that. But the
fact was that a hand had been gently laid upon his arm.

"So soon!" he thought. "Well done, boys!" But he said never a word,
while a pair of lips touched his ear and said, in the Indian tongue--

"Where lies your friend?"

Drake sighed sleepily, and gave a short and intensely subdued cough, as
he turned his lips to a brown ear which seemed to rise out of the grass
for the purpose, and spoke something that was inaudible to all save that
ear. Instantly hand, lips, and ear withdrew, leaving the trapper in
apparently deep repose. A sharp knife, however, had touched his bonds,
and he knew that he was free.

A few minutes later, and the same hand touched Tom Brixton's arm. He
would probably have betrayed h