s?

He was not one to spend his time in guesses that could not be answered,
and he resumed his advance, increasing his speed as the cliff became
less precipitous. It was an average night, not a black protecting one,
and he knew that he must practice great caution. He intended when
further down to swim the river, but it was not yet safe to expose
himself there, and he clung to the southern bank.

He soon had proof that all his caution was needed. He heard a soft
footstep and quietly sank down in the bushes. A Miami sentinel passed
within twenty feet of him, and the boy did not rise again until he was
out of sight. Twenty yards further he saw another, and then the glow of
lights came through the trees. He knew it to be an Indian camp fire,
although the warriors themselves were hidden from him by a swell of the
earth. But he felt an intense desire to see this fire, or rather those
about it. It was a legitimate wish, as any information that he might
obtain would be valuable for the return--and he intended to return.

He crept to a point near the crest of the swell, and then he lay very
close, glad that the bushes there were so thick and that they hid him so
well. Six men were coming and he recognized them. Two were white, Girty
and Blackstaffe, and there were Yellow Panther, Red Eagle, Captain Pipe,
the Delaware, and White Lightning, the great Timmendiquas of the
Wyandots. They were talking in the Shawnee tongue, which he understood
well, and despite all his experience and self-control, a tremor shook
him.

They stopped near him and continued their conversation. Every word that
they said reached the listener in the bush.

"The place was warned, as Ware said. There's no doubt of it," said Girty
viciously, nodding toward the hill on which stood Fort Prescott. "His
boast was true. Braxton Wyatt knows him. He was tossed by him into
twenty feet of the Ohio. It must have been worth seeing."

Girty laughed. He could take a malignant pleasure in the misfortune of
an ally. Henry also saw the white teeth of Timmendiquas gleam as his
lips curved into a smile. But in him the appeal was to a sense of humor,
not to venom. He seemed to have little malice in his nature.

"It is so," said Timmendiquas in Shawnee. "It was certainly the one
called Ware, a bold youth, and powerful. It was wonderful the way in
which he broke through our lines at the running of the gantlet and
escaped. He must be a favorite of Manitou."

"Favorite of Ma