k 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 j