ly once and that was when he passed the
gates, looked all around and said: 'Good, but not much better than the
Ohio Country.'"

Both Shif'less Sol and Silent Tom grinned, but the discussion was not
pursued, as Henry announced that he was about to leave them in order to
enter the Indian ring, and make Wyatt and the warriors think the rocky
hollow was defended.

"The rest of you would better stay in the canebrakes or the thickets,"
he said.

"We won't go so fur away that we can't hear any signal you may make,"
said Long Jim Hart. "Give us the cry uv the wolf. Thar are lots uv
wolves in these woods, Injun an' other kinds, but we know yourn from the
rest, Henry."

"And don't take too big risks," said Paul.

"I won't," said Henry, and he quickly vanished from their sight among
the bushes. Two hundred yards away, and he stopped, but he could not
hear them moving. Nor had he expected that any sound would come from
them to him, knowing that they would lie wholly still for a long time,
awaiting his passage through the Indian lines.

The heart of the great youth swelled within him. As truly a son of the
wilderness as primitive man had been thousands of years ago, before
civilization had begun, when he depended upon the acuteness of his
senses to protect him from monstrous wild beasts, he was as much at home
now as the ordinary man felt in city streets, and he faced his great
task not only without apprehension, but with a certain delight. He had
the Indian's cunning and the white man's intellect as well, and he was
eager to match wits and cunning against those of the warriors.

He would have been glad had the night turned a little darker, but the
full burnished moon and showers of stars gave no promise of it, and he
must rely upon his own judgment to seek the shadows, and to pass where
they lay thickest. The forest, spread about him, was magnificent with
oak and beech and elm of great size, but the moonlight and the starshine
shone between the trunks, and moving objects would have been almost as
conspicuous there as in the day. Hence he sought the brushwood, and
advancing swiftly in its shelter, he approached the place that had been
such a comfortable home for the five, but which they had thought it wise
to abandon. A whimsical fancy, a desire to repay them for the evil they
were doing, seized him. He would not only draw the warriors on, but he
would annoy and tantalize them. He would make them think the evil
spirits were