t."

"What kind of a noise?"

"We might try our old signal, the call that we've so often made to one
another."

"Yes," said Henry, "that is what we must do."

CHAPTER XVII

PICKING UP THE STRANDS

Henry sat down in the underbrush, and Shif'less Sol sat down close to
him. Their figures were hidden by the darkness and the bushes.

"Do your best, Henry," said the shiftless one.

Henry opened his mouth and emitted a long, mournful cry, so like that of
the owl that Shif'less Sol, at a little distance, could not have told
the difference. After a silence of a few seconds he repeated the cry, to
show that they were two.

"Don't see why you can't let a tired and sick man sleep, 'specially when
he needs it so bad," said a voice so near them that both started up in
astonishment.

It was the voice of Tom Ross, as they knew when the very first words
were uttered, and they saw him standing erect in a little clump of trees
and looking reproachfully at them. It was night, and Tom was fifty yards
away, but they would have known his figure and attitude anywhere. They
rushed to him, each seized a hand and shook it.

"Don't shake too hard," said Tom. "Jest gittin' well uv a pow'ful bad
headache."

They saw that a rude bandage encircled his head, and was tied tightly.

"Injun bullet hit my skull," said Tom briefly. "Couldn't git in, so it
went 'round an' come out on the other side. Made my head ache most a
week. Been campin' here till you'd come."

"Where have you been camping?" asked Henry.

"Over thar in the bushes," replied Tom, and he led the way to a very
thick clump at the side of a huge, up-thrust root of an oak. Sheltered
partly by the bushes and partly by the big root had been the lair of
some wild animal that Tom had dispossessed. But he had relined it first
with dry leaves and little boughs, turning it into a man's nest.

"Found it the night I dropped out," said Tom. "Couldn't be partickler
then. Had to lay down somewhar. Remember, after I'd been here an hour or
two, some big yeller animal with yellerish-green eyes come starin' in at
me through the bushes, angry and reproachful-like. Said to me plain as
day: 'You've took my house. Git out.' Felt like a robber, I did,
slippin' into another man's bed while he wuz away, an' takin' up all the
room. But I jest had to hold on, me feelin' pow'ful bad. I p'inted my
rifle at him, looked down the sights and said: 'Git.' He must have
knowed what a rifle meant, '