the sight which so often boded ill to his kind.
The warriors were in a group, some sitting others standing, and though
there was no fire and the moonlight was slight he could mark the
primitive brutality of their features, the nature of the animal that
fought at all times for life showing in their eyes. They were hard,
harsh and repellent in every aspect, but the boy felt for a moment a
singular attraction, there was even a distant feeling of kinship as if
he, too, could live this life and had lived it. But the feeling quickly
passed, and in its place came the thought of his comrades whom he must
save.

The older of the warriors talked in a low voice, saying unknown words in
a harsh, guttural tongue, and Henry could guess only at their meaning.
But they seemed to be awaiting a signal and presently the low thrilling
note was heard again. Then the warriors turned as if this were the
command to do so, and came directly toward the boy who lay in the
darkest shadows of the undergrowth.

Henry was surprised and startled but only for a moment, then the
primeval instinct came to his aid and swiftly he sank away in the bushes
in front of them, as before, no sound marking his passage. He thought
rapidly and in all his thoughts there was none of himself but as the
savior of the little party. It seemed to come to him naturally that he
should be the protector and champion.

When he had gone about fifty yards he uttered a shout, long, swelling
and full of warning. Then he turned to his right and crashed through the
undergrowth, purposely making a noise that the pursuing warriors could
not fail to hear. Ross and the others, he knew, would be aroused
instantly by his cry and would take measures of safety. Now the savages
would be likely to follow him alone, and he noted by the sounds that
they had turned aside to do so.

At this moment Henry Ware felt nothing but exultation that he, a boy,
should prove himself a match for all the cunning of the forest-bred, and
he thought not at all of the pursuit that came so fiercely behind him.

He ran swiftly and now directly more than a mile from the camp of his
friends. Then the inherited instinct that had served him so well failed;
it could not warn him of the deep little river that lay straight across
his path flowing toward the Mississippi. He came out upon its banks and
was ready to drop down in its waters, but he saw that before he could
reach the farther shore he would be a target for