ife, drew a map on
deerskin, and he added verbal details so explicit that skilled forest
runners like the five could not fail to go straight to Fort Prescott.

In a quarter of an hour they started. When they reached the forest they
glanced back and saw Boone and Kenton leaning on their long rifles,
looking at them. Paul impulsively waved his hand.

"These are two men to trust!" he exclaimed.

"Shorely!" said Tom Ross.

They did not speak again for a long time. Dropping into Indian file,
Henry in the lead, they traveled fast. They knew that the need of them
at Fort Prescott was great. Evidently the men who had built the fort
were inexperienced and too confident, and Henry, moreover, had a great
fear that Girty and his army would get there first. The renegade was
uncommonly shrewd. He would strike as quickly as he could at this
exposed place, and if successful--which in all likelihood he would
be--would turn the captured cannon against the fleet of Adam Colfax. If
superhuman exertions could prevent such a disaster, then they must be
made.

It was a warm day, and Paul was the first to grow weary. The way led
wholly through woods, and it seemed to him that the heat lay
particularly heavy under the boughs of the great trees which served to
enclose it and which shut out wandering breezes. But he would not
complain. He strove manfully to keep up with the others, step for step,
although his breath was growing shorter.

Henry about noon looked back, noticed that Paul was laboring, and
stopped for a rest of a half hour. Two or three hours later they struck
a great trail, one so large that all knew at least five hundred warriors
must have passed. It was obvious that it had been made by Girty and his
army, and they saw with a sinking of the heart that it was hours cold.
The Indian force was much ahead of them, and its trail led straight away
to Fort Prescott.

"I'm afraid they'll beat us to the fort," said Henry. "They've got such
a big start. Oh, that Girty is a cunning man! If we could only warn the
garrison! Surprise is what they have most to dread."

"It means that we must get there somehow or other and tell them," said
Paul. "We've got to do the impossible."

"Shorely," said Tom Ross.

"That is so," said Henry quietly. "We must try for Fort Prescott. If all
of us cannot get there in time, then as many as can must. If only one
can do it, then he must reach it alone."

"It is agreed," said the others together, and