g it. Smoke and flames were pouring from
the end window of the Granville cabin also. As the red tongues licked
across the top of the doorway they threw into relief the arm and hand of
the old Englishman still hanging over the threshold.

My head felt as though it was cracked wide open and it throbbed most
sickeningly. I managed to lift it a bit to escape further bruises as my
captor roughly hauled me to the forest. The third cabin, the one occupied
by the Dales, burst into flames as I was being yanked into the first
fringe of bushes. The valley was now brightly lighted, and my last view of
it included the lick-block. One phase of a successful Indian raid was
missing; there were no warriors madly dancing about the burning homes. Far
up the ridge rang out the infuriated cry of a panther, and I knew it was
fear of young Cousin's deadly rifle that was keeping the savages under
cover.

"Let me stand up and walk," I said in Shawnee.

"Alive are you?" growled a white man's voice in English.

"You'll be John Ward," I said as some one lifted me to my feet.

"I am Red Arrow, a Shawnee. And don't you forget it."

"Where are the Dales?" I asked.

"Keep your mouth shut!" he ordered.

They untied my hands only to fasten them behind me. They shifted the
waist-cord to my neck, and then released my feet. Some one walked ahead,
pulling on the cord, and I followed as best I could to escape being
strangled. On each side of me walked a warrior, invisible except as when
we crossed a glade where the starlight filtered down. Ward walked behind
me, and warned:

"Any tricks and you'll get my ax."

"You were in the cabin with the dead Englishman?"

He chuckled softly and boasted:

"I killed him. When you two were fighting fire I got my chance to steal
down to the Dale cabin. Then it was easy to make the Granville cabin. The
old fool thought I was one of you when he heard my voice, and drew the
bar. I was inside and had his life before he knew he had made a mistake. I
waited. Then you crawled along. Curse that damned young devil who yells
like a panther! He was the one I wanted. I'd give a thousand of such as
you to get his hair! But he got by the door without my hearing him. A
little more, and you'd have passed, too."

There was much crashing and running through the bushes behind us, and
occasionally I could make out dark shapes hurrying by. These were the
warriors who had fired the cabins, and now they were in haste to leave the