even Yellow Panther and myself. If we could
capture him and make him become one of us, a red warrior to fight the
white people to whom he once belonged, he would add much to our strength
in war."

Blackstaffe shook his head most emphatically.

"Don't think of that again, great chief," he said. "It is a waste of
time. He would endure the most terrible of all our tortures first. Think
instead of his scalp hanging in your wigwam."

The eyes of Red Eagle glistened.

"It would be a great triumph," he said, "but our young men have chased
him many times, and always he is gone like the deer. We have set the
trap for him often, but when it falls he is away. None shoots so quickly
or so true as he, and if one of our young men meets him alone in the
forest it is the Shawnee over whom the birds sing the death song."

"It's not his scalp that we want merely for the scalp's sake. You are a
brave and great chief, O Red Eagle, and you know that Ware and his
comrades are scouts, spies and messengers. It's not so much the warriors
whom we lose at their hands, but they're the eyes of the woods. They
always tell the settlements of our coming, and bring the white forces
together. We must trap them on this march, if we have to spread out a
belt of a hundred warriors to do it."

"I hope the net won't have any holes in it. We overtake the great band
tomorrow, and then you'll have all the warriors you need. They can be
spread out on the flank as we march. Hark, Red Eagle, what was that?"

Henry himself in his covert started a little, as the long whine of a
wolf came from a point far behind them. One of the warriors on the other
side of the fire returned the cry, so piercing and ferocious in its note
that Henry started again. But as the chief, the renegade and all the
warriors rose to their feet, he withdrew somewhat further into the
thicket, yet remaining where he could see all that might pass.

The far wolf howled again, and the near wolf replied. After that
followed a long silence, with the renegade, Red Eagle and his men,
standing waiting and eager. The signals showed that friends were coming
to join friends, and Henry was as eager as they to see the arrivals. Yet
he had a shrewd suspicion of their identity.

Dusky figures showed presently among the trees, as a silent line came
on. Red Eagle and Blackstaffe were standing side by side, and the
renegade broke into a low laugh.

"So Wyatt comes with his men, or most of them," he said