t. The dry
boughs rustled against one another, and the flames wavered, but roared
the louder as the drafts of air fanned them to greater strength. The
warriors, heated by the heaps of coals and the vast quantities of food
they were devouring, felt the cold not at all. Instead, the remaining
few who wore their blankets threw them off, and there was a solid array
of naked brown bodies, glistening with paint and heat. Innumerable
sparks rose from the fires and floated high overhead, to die there
against the clear, cold skies. When a group of singers and dancers
ceased, another took its place, and the fierce, weird chant never
stopped, the wintry forest continually giving back its echoes.

The wilderness spectacle had a remarkable fascination for Henry, who
understood it so well, and, knowing that there was little danger from
men who were spending their time in what to them was a festival, he
crept closer, but was still well hidden in the dense thicket. Then his
pulses gave a great leap, as four figures which had been on the other
side of the fire came distinctly into his view. They were Red Eagle,
head chief of the Shawnees; Yellow Panther, head chief of the Miamis;
and the renegades, Braxton Wyatt and Moses Blackstaffe, who had pursued
him so long and with such tenacity. They were talking earnestly, and he
crept to the very edge of the thicket, where scarcely three feet divided
him from the open.

He knew that only a chance would bring the four near enough for him to
understand their words, but after a half hour's waiting the chance came.
Blackstaffe, who took precedence over Wyatt because of his superior
years and experience, was doing most of the talking, and the subject,
chance or coincidence bringing it about, was Henry himself.

"The warriors discovered a white trail, the trail of one," said the
renegade, "but we don't know it was Ware's. He may have perished in the
great freeze, and if so we are well rid of a dangerous foe, an eye that
has always watched over our movements, and a bold spirit that always
takes the alarm to the settlements below. I give him full credit for all
his skill and courage, but I'd rather his bones were lying in the
forest, picked clean by the wolves."

Henry felt a little thrill of satisfaction. "Picked clean by the
wolves?" Why, the wolves themselves had saved him once!

"I don't think he's dead," said Braxton Wyatt. "I don't know why, but I
believe I understand him better than any of