uttered, and, heavy with menace,
they rang far through the woods, startling and distinct.

Then from the edge of the forest emerged about forty warriors painted
and decorated in a wildly fantastic manner and wearing headdresses of
feathers. The drums beat again, furiously now, and the men began to
dance, swinging to and fro and writhing. At the same time they sang a
war song of fierce, choppy words, and those who were not dancing sang
with them.

The lane wound around and around, and, as the singers and dancers went
forward they increased in vehemence. They were transported, like men who
have taken some powerful drug, and their emotions were quickly
communicated to all the rest of the band. Fierce howls rose above the
chant of the war songs. Warriors leaping high in the air made the
imaginary motions of killing and scalping an enemy. Then their long
yells of triumph would swell above the universal chant.

All the while it was growing darker in the forest. The heavy drifting
clouds completely hid the moon and stars. The sky was black and
menacing, and the circular ring of woods looked solid like a wall. But
within this ring the heat and fury grew. The violence and endurance of
the dancers were incredible, and the shouting chant of the multitude
urged them on.

Henry caught sight of a white figure near the chiefs, and he recognized
the young renegade, Braxton Wyatt. Just behind him was another and older
renegade named Blackstaffe, famed along the whole border for his cunning
and cruelty. Then he saw men, a half-dozen of them, in the red uniforms
of British officers, and behind them two monstrous dark shapes on
wheels.

"Can those be cannon?" he whispered to Shif'less Sol.

"They kin be an' they are. I reckon the British allies o' the Injuns hev
brought 'em from Detroit to batter down the palisades o' our little
settlements."

Henry felt a thrill of horror. He knew that they were cannon, but he had
hoped that the shiftless one would persuade him they were not. They were
probably the first cannon ever seen in that wilderness, the sisters of
those used later with success by the Indians under English leadership
and with English cannoneers from Detroit against two little settlements
in Kentucky.

But startled as Henry was, his attention turned back to the dancers. Old
customs, the habits of far-off ancestors, slumbered in him, and despite
himself something wild and fierce in his blood again responded to the
primeva