to keep absolutely silent, and going a little way
into the hammock, through the passage way he managed to find a place
from which he could see the intruders. He soon discovered that Joe's
account of them was slightly exaggerated in two important particulars.
They were only ordinary Indians, neither larger nor smaller than grown
Indians usually are, and instead of a thousand there were but three of
them in all.

But three fully grown Indians were enough to justify a good deal of
apprehension, and if they should discover the party in the tree, Tom
knew very well they would make very short work of their destruction. He
crept back to the tree therefore and again cautioned Joe and Judie, in a
whisper, not to speak or make any other noise. Then he returned to his
place of observation and watched the Indians. They soon made a crackling
fire and proceeded to broil some game they had killed, this and the
eating which followed occupied perhaps an hour, during which Tom made
frequent journeys to the little room, nominally for the purpose of
cautioning the others to keep still, but really to work off some portion
of his uneasiness, which was growing with every moment. He was terrified
at first upon general principles, as any other boy of eleven years old
would have been. Then he was afraid that the Indians would by some
accident, lean something against the curtain of small roots between two
other big trees, and that the curtain might not be strong enough to
support it, in which event their hiding-place would be discovered at
once. He was afraid, too, that some slight noise inside the fortress
might catch the uncommonly quick ears of the Indians.

All these were dangers well worth considering; but now a new, and much
greater danger began to show itself. The drift was largely composed of
light wood, and from his hiding-place Tom could see that the fire built
by the trees had communicated itself to the hammock, and that the flames
were rapidly spreading. The danger now was that the fire would burn into
the alley-way and so cut off retreat from the fortress, and if so those
inside would be burned alive. Quitting his place of observation
therefore, he established himself as a sentry in the alley-way, having
determined, if the fire should approach the passage, to take Joe and
Judie out of the fortress and into one of the aisles near the farther
edge of the drift-pile. Having begun to plan he saw all the
possibilities of the case and tr