y relax their vigilance. He had
protected his weapons from the rain with his buckskin hunting shirt, and
he flexed his arms and muscles to see that they had not grown stiff from
such a long stay in one position.

He began to creep through the bushes to the bottom of the valley and
then up the slope toward the little fortress, and in the task he called
into play all his natural and acquired powers. An eye looking down would
have taken him for a large animal stalking his prey with infinite
cunning and cleverness. The bushes scarcely moved as he passed, and he
made no sound but the faintest sliding motion, audible only four or five
feet away.

The strain upon his body was very great. He did not really crawl, but
edged himself forward with a series of muscular efforts. It was
painfully slow, but it was necessary, because the Indian ears were
acute, and the rustling of a bush or the breaking of a twig would draw
their instant attention.

As he drew himself slowly on, like a great serpent, he watched for the
Indian sentinels, and at last he saw one, a Shawnee warrior crouched in
the lee of a huge tree trunk to shelter himself from the driving rain,
but always looking toward the mouth of the hollow in the cliff.

Henry, inch by inch, bore away and curved about him. Twice he thought
the sentinel had heard something unusual, but in each case he lay flat
and silent, while the wind continued to shriek down the valley, driving
the chill rain before it. Each time the suspicions of the watcher passed
and Henry moved slowly on, infinite patience allied with infinite skill.
If there was anything in heredity and reincarnation he was the greatest
tracker and hunter in that old primeval world, where such skill ranked
first among human qualities. As always with him, his will and courage
rose with the danger. Crouched in the bush fifteen feet away he looked
at the warrior, a powerful fellow, brawny in the chest but thin in the
legs, as was usual among them. The Indian's eyes swept continuously in a
half circle, but they did not see the great figure lying so near, and
holding his life on the touch of a trigger.

Henry laughed deep in his throat. All the wild blood in him was alive
and leaping. He even felt a certain exultation in the situation, one
that would have appalled an ordinary scout and stalker, but which drew
from him only supreme courage and utmost mastery in woodcraft. He felt
within him the supreme certainty that he would su