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XXIX--A Startling Check, 217
XXX--A Merited Fate, 227
XXXI--The Mohawk Explains, 234
XXXII--The Fatal Tree, 242
XXXIII--Captive and Captors, 249

THE WILDERNESS FUGITIVES.

CHAPTER I.

ALONE AND TOGETHER.

The reader will recall that at the close of The River Fugitives the
narrative left our friends in a situation, apparently, of safety; and
the belief, on the part of Jo Minturn, his sister Rosa and Ned Clinton,
was strong that, in their flight from the dreadful scenes of the Wyoming
massacre of July, 1778, they had left all dangers behind. They were
confident that, under the guidance of the matchless Mohawk, Lena-Wingo
(temporarily absent in quest of food), the road to security was beset by
no perils worth the mention.

But, as has also been intimated, they were altogether wrong in this
belief. Brother and sister and Ned Clinton were seated near each other
on a fallen tree, and it was not yet fully dark when the soft tread of a
moccasin was heard on the leaves, and they saw the tall, slim figure of
the Mohawk come forth like some spirit of the forest to ask them their
business in thus invading his domains. The supposition was so general
that he had gone in quest of food, that a common instinct led them to
look to see whether he brought anything of that nature with him. There
was enough light left to show that he carried nothing but his gun.

"Well, Jack," said Ned, "we thought you had gone out foraging, but if
you did, you didn't make much success of it."

"Lena-Wingo didn't hunt eat--he hunt something more."

"Well, did he find it?" asked Rosa, who was more daring in her questions
than the others thought it prudent to be.

"Yes--he find him."

"Why don't you bring him here, then, that we may see him?"

"He gone," was the direct but rather unsatisfactory answer, for there
was no telling to what he referred.

Rosa was on the point of questioning him further, when it struck her
that if he desired them to know what he had been doing he would tell
them only when he chose. And so she forbore.

"I hope the result was pleasing to you," ventured Ned Clinton, on what
seemed forbidden ground.

"When Lena-Wingo look for Iroquois in canoe, he take knife along."

As this remark was clearly intended in the light of a joke, all felt the
duty of laughing at it, although the mirthful inclination was not ver