boughs which they had cut and arranged
alongside a huge log. For hours Joe lay awake, he could not sleep.
He listened to the breeze rustling the leaves, and shivered at the
thought of the sighing wind he had once heard moan through the
forest. Presently he turned over. The slight noise instantly
awakened Wetzel who lifted his dark face while he listened intently.
He spoke one word: "Sleep," and lay back again on the leaves. Joe
forced himself to be quiet, relaxed all his muscles and soon
slumbered.

On the morrow Wetzel went out to look over the hunting prospects.
About noon he returned. Joe was surprised to find some slight change
in the hunter. He could not tell what it was.

"I seen Injun sign," said Wetzel. "There's no tellin' how soon we
may run agin the sneaks. We can't hunt here. Like as not there's
Hurons and Delawares skulkin' round. I think I'd better take you
back to the village."

"It's all on my account you say that," said Joe.

"Sure," Wetzel replied.

"If you were alone what would you do?"

"I calkilate I'd hunt fer some red-skinned game."

The supreme moment had come. Joe's heart beat hard. He could not
miss this opportunity; he must stay with the hunter. He looked
closely at Wetzel.

"I won't go back to the village," he said.

The hunter stood in his favorite position, leaning on his long
rifle, and made no response.

"I won't go," continued Joe, earnestly. "Let me stay with you. If at
any time I hamper you, or can not keep the pace, then leave me to
shift for myself; but don't make me go until I weaken. Let me stay."

Fire and fearlessness spoke in Joe's every word, and his gray eyes
contracted with their peculiar steely flash. Plain it was that,
while he might fail to keep pace with Wetzel, he did not fear this
dangerous country, and, if it must be, would face it alone.

Wetzel extended his broad hand and gave his comrade's a viselike
squeeze. To allow the lad to remain with him was more than he would
have done for any other person in the world. Far better to keep the
lad under his protection while it was possible, for Joe was taking
that war-trail which had for every hunter, somewhere along its
bloody course, a bullet, a knife, or a tomahawk. Wetzel knew that
Joe was conscious of this inevitable conclusion, for it showed in
his white face, and in the resolve in his big, gray eyes.

So there, in the shade of a towering oak, the Indian-killer admitted
the boy into his friendship, and