oice of Long Jim. "I hev done give
you an invite to the banquet an' you stop an' hang 'roun' thar in the
woods, whar I can't see you. Five minutes more an' the invites are all
withdrawed. Then the eatin' an' the singin' an' the playin' will all go
on without you, an' ef you are found hangin' 'roun' our door I'll hev
the dogs to chase you away."

No answer came from the woods, but Henry knew how the hearts of the
warriors were consumed with rage. Those whom they wished to take were so
near and so few and yet they held an almost invincible fortress. Rage
stabbed at the Indian heart.

Long Jim continued his taunts for some time, speaking both Shawnee and
Miami, and also a little Wyandot and Delaware. His vocabulary acquired a
sudden richness and depth. He called them names that implied every
manner of cowardice and meanness. Their ancestors had been buzzards
feeding on offal, they themselves were mangy, crippled and deformed,
and, when the few that were left alive by the white men returned home,
they would be set to work cooking, and caring for the lodges. When they
died they would return to the base forms of their ancestors. They would
be snakes and toads and turtles, and the animals that walked on four
legs and looked straight before them would laugh at them whenever they
saw them.

Long Jim had never before been so eloquent, and never before had his
voice been so unctuous. He thundered forth challenges and insults after
the Indian fashion. He told them that he and his comrades found it a
poor amusement to fight with such men, but when they finished with their
eating and drinking and sleeping they might go north to the Indian
villages and whip the warriors in the presence of their squaws with
willow switches. Meanwhile they intended to sleep and rest, but if any
of the old women out there came into their cavern and annoyed their
slumbers he would chase every one of them out with a switch.

Henry laughed long in his throat. Long Jim was proving himself a forest
warrior of the first quality. It was the way of the woods, and these
taunts stung the red men to the quick. He knew that they were lying in
the bushes, their hearts beating heavily with anger and the hot breath
burning their lips. Two, unable to restrain themselves, fired, but their
bullets merely rebounded from the stone walls of the grotto, and the
defenders did not deign to answer.

Then came a long period of silence and Henry made himself as small and
obs