rt Pitt in a day or two," cried Ree.

"Yaas, it was forty odd years ago that Braddock had his bad luck when he
bumped into a lot of Injuns in ambush. I was jest a chunk of a boy then,
but I've hearn tell on it, many's the time, by my old gran'sire who
learned me how to shoot. I was a reg'lar wonder with a gun when I was
your age, kittens. I've picked up some since then though! See the
knot-hole in that beech way over yonder? Waal, I'm going to put a bullet
in the middle of it."

Taking aim, the stranger fired. "Ye'll find the bullet squar' in the
center," he said, in a boastful way.

"Shucks!" exclaimed John, who was often too outspoken for his own good.
He raised his rifle and fired. "There's another bullet right beside your
own, mister," he said.

"Well I swan! So there is!" called out the woodsman in great surprise.
"But I'll bet a coon-skin my tother kitten can't do the like."

Like a flash Ree's rifle flew to his shoulder and he seemed to take no
aim whatever; yet the bullet flew true. But just an instant after he
fired the crack of another rifle sounded behind him. A leaden ball
shrieked close to his head and a lock of his hair fell fluttering to the
ground.

CHAPTER VII.

On Into the Wilderness.

Great as the shock of the sudden attack and his narrow escape was, Ree
gave only a little yell of surprise and anger, and ran in the direction
from which the shot had come, drawing his pistol as he went. He found no
one. Though utterly regardless of the danger he might be in by thus
exposing himself, he made a careful search.

"Land o' livin', boy, ye'll be meat for the redskins before ye've crossed
the frontier, if ye don't be keerful!" cried the woodsman, quickly coming
up, springing from tree to tree, and thus always keeping their protecting
trunks between himself and the point from which the mysterious shot had
been fired. "What is the varmint pepperin' away at ye so, for?"

"I haven't the least idea, for I don't know who it is," Ree answered.

But he was glad the woodsman's frank manner left no room to suspect him
of treachery, although there had been grounds for this suspicion in the
circumstance of the shot having been fired just as his own rifle and that
of his friend had been discharged.

John had remained on guard beside Jerry and the cart, watchful for any
sign of their strange enemy, completely mystified by the attack.
Presently he joined Ree and the hunter who were searching for the tra