it left these
threads. See, here are three of 'em."

"But how do you know it was strong canvas?"

"Because if it hadn't been, more than these three threads would have
been left. I'm astonished at you! What have you done with your wits? It
was just over there, too, that Alloway and Cartwright sat with the
chiefs and held a council. Two or three bushes were cut down close to
the ground in order that a dozen men or so might sit comfortably in a
ring. They smoked a pipe, and came to some agreement. Here are the ashes
that were thrown from the pipe after they were through with it. Then
Alloway and Cartwright walked off in this direction. You can see even
now the imprint of their boot heels. Moccasins would leave no such
trace. It must have rained that night, too, because they spread their
tent and slept in it."

"You're guessing now, Henry," said Long Jim.

"I don't have to guess. This is the simplest thing in the world. One has
only to look and see. Here are the holes where they drove the tent pegs.
But the two officers did not go to sleep at once after the council. They
sat in the tent and talked quite a while."

"How do you know?"

"More ashes, and on the ground covered by the tent. Evidently they have
pipes of their own, as most all English officers do, and they wouldn't
have sat here, and smoked, while on a hard march, if they did'nt have
something important to talk about. I take it that the leaders of the
Indian army are trying to solve some question. Perhaps they don't know
which of the settlements to march against first."

"Over here is where they kept the horses fur the big guns," said Silent
Tom. "Mebbe we might git at them horses, Henry."

"We might, but it wouldn't help us much. The warriors are so many that,
although they don't like work, they could take turns at pulling 'em
along with ropes. They could do that too, with the wagons that carry the
ammunition for the cannon. Come on, boys. It don't pay us to linger over
dead campfires. Here goes the trail which is as broad as a road."

He led the way, but stopped again in a few minutes.

"They had their troubles when they started the next morning," he said,
as he pointed with a long forefinger.

They saw flowing directly across the road one of the innumerable creeks,
swollen to a depth of about four feet by the rain, and with rather a
swift current. Hundreds of footprints had been left in the soft soil
near the stream, and they examined them carefull