were anxious to propitiate the
gods ere going into action.

Henry gazed at the moon, a silver globe in the heavens, and he
distinctly saw the man upon its surface, who returned his looks with
benevolence, while the countless stars about it quivered and glittered
and shed a propitious light. Then he gazed at his comrades, resting
against the trunks of the trees, and unreal in the silver mist. They
were yet so still that the wild animals might well take them to be
lifeless, and the power to sit there so long without stirring a muscle
was one acquired only by warriors and scouts.

A faint whining cry came out of the silver dark, a sound that had
traveled a great distance on waves of air, and every one of the five
understood it, on the instant. It was one of the most ominous sounds of
the forest, a sound full of ferocity and menace, the howl of the wolf,
but they knew it came from human lips, that, in truth, it was a signal
ordered by the leader of the besieging band. Presently the reply, a
similar cry, came from another point of the compass, traveling like the
first on waves of air, until it died away in a savage undernote.

"They've probably set their lines all the way around our hollow, and
they're sure now they'll hold us fast," said Henry, with grim irony.

"That's 'bout it, I take it," said Shif'less Sol, "an' it 'pears to me
that this is the time for us to laugh, purvidin' it won't be in any way
breakin' uv our agreement to keep the day till its very last minute."

He looked questioningly at Paul.

"To laugh is not against our compact," replied the lad, "since it has
such good cause. When a net is cast for us, and those who cast it are
so confident we're in it, we've a right to laugh as long as we're
outside it."

"Then," said Shif'less Sol with conviction, "ez thar's so much to laugh
at, an' we've all agreed to laugh, we'll laugh."

The five accordingly laughed, but the laughs were soundless. Their eyes
twinkled, their lips twitched, but the canebrake, save for the ceaseless
rustle of the singing wind, was as silent as ever. No one five feet away
would have known that anybody was laughing.

"Thar, I feel better," said Shif'less Sol, when his face quit moving,
"but though they're a long distance off I kin see with my mind's eyes
Braxton Wyatt an' his band stalkin' us in our home in the rock, an'
claspin' us in a grip that can't be shook off."

"Shettin' down on us," said Silent Tom.

The shiftless one b