m softly, and they swam close together again. Then they
floated upon their backs and held a council of war.

"It seems likely to me," said Henry, "that the Indian canoes will go
straight across the stream after us, naturally thinking that we'll make
at once for Fort Prescott."

"I'm thinkin' that you're tellin' the truth," said Seth Cole.

"Then we must drop down the stream, strike the bank, and come back up in
the brush to the place where our rifles and clothes are hid."

"Looks like the right thing to me," said Tom Wilmore. "I'll want my
rifle back, but 'pears to me I'll want my clothes wuss. I'm a bashful
man, I am. Look thar! they've got torches!"

Indians standing up in the canoes were sweeping the water with pine
torches in the search for the fugitives, and Henry saw that they must
hasten.

"We must make another dash for the bank," he said. "Keep your heads as
low down on the water as you can."

They swam fast, but the Indian canoes were spreading out, and one tall
warrior who held a burning pine torch in his hand uttered a shout. He
had seen the six dots on the stream.

"Dive for it again," cried Henry, "and turn your heads toward the land!"

He knew that the Indians would fire, and as he and his comrades went
under he heard the spatter of bullets on the water. When they rose to
the surface again they were where they could wade, and they ran toward
the bank. They reached dry land, but even in the obscurity of the night
their figures were outlined against the dark green bush, and the
warriors from their canoes fired again. Henry heard near him a low cry,
almost suppressed at the lips, and if it had not been for the red stain
on Tom Wilmore's shoulder he would not have known who had been hit.

"Is it bad, Tom?" he exclaimed.

"Not very," replied Wilmore, shutting his teeth hard. "Go on. I can keep
up."

A boat suddenly shot out of the dusk very near. It contained four Indian
warriors, two with paddles and two with upraised rifles. One of the
rifles was aimed at Henry and the other at Seth Cole, and neither of
them had a weapon with which to reply. Henry looked straight at the
muzzle which bore upon him. It seemed to exercise a kind of terrible
fascination for him, and he was quite confident that his time was at
hand.

He saw the warrior who knelt in the canoe with the rifle aimed at him
suddenly turn to an ashy paleness. A red spot appeared in his forehead.
The rifle dropped from his hands into the