be the Injuns took him."

"I'm not forgetting it, Jim, but I've every confidence in Shif'less Sol.
I don't believe those warriors could possibly get him."

Another half-hour dragged away, and Long Jim became more uneasy. He
scanned the woods everywhere for the two missing warriors, and, at last,
he drew a mighty sigh of relief when a tufted head appeared over the
bushes, and a warrior returned to the opening.

"He's a Shawnee," said Long Jim. "I marked him when he went away. I kin
see that he's tired an' I could tell by the bend in his shoulders that
he wuz comin' back with nothin'. He's set down now, an' ez he 'pears to
be talkin' I guess he's tellin' the others, to 'scuse his failure, that
it wuzn't really a man that he wuz follerin', but jest a ghost or a
phantom, or suthin' uv that kind. Thar ain't but one left an' he ought
to be in in a few minutes."

But the few minutes and many more with them slid into the past, without
bringing back the last warrior, and once more that look of deep
apprehension appeared on the face of Long Jim Hart. The man should have
returned long before, and Jim held him to personal accountability for
it.

"I didn't like his looks when he went away," he complained to Paul. "He
wuz a big feller, darker than most uv the others, an' he wuz painted
somethin' horrible. I guessed by his looks that he wuz the best scout
an' trailer in the band an' that he would hang on like a wolf. Ugly ez
he is his face would look nice to me now, 'pearin' in that openin'. He's
done outstayed his leave."

"I wouldn't be worried, Jim," said Paul. "We know what a man Sol is in
the woods. No single warrior could bring him down."

"That's so. Sol's terrible smart, but then anybody might be ambushed. I
tell you, Paul, that wuz the wickedest lookin' warrior I ever saw. His
eyes wuz plum' full uv old Satan."

"Why, Jim, we are too far away for you to have seen anything of that
kind."

"I know that's so at usual times, but them eyes uv his wuz shinin' so
terrible bright with meanness that I caught thar look like the gleam uv
a burnin' glass. I reckon he wuz the wust savage in all these woods. All
but him hev come back more 'n a half-hour ago, an' I'm beginnin' to hev
a sort uv creepy feelin'."

"Hark!" exclaimed Henry, who had been standing almost in the mouth of
the opening.

"What is it, Henry? What is it?" exclaimed Long Jim eagerly.

"That strong wind brought the sound of a rifle shot. It was so faint an