"

De Catinat pulled off his shoes as directed, and Du Lhut did the same.

"Put them on as if they were gloves," said the pioneer, and an instant
later Ephraim Savage and Amos had their comrades' shoes upon their
hands.

"You can sling your muskets over your back. So! Now down on all fours,
bending yourselves double, with your hands pressing hard upon the earth.
That is excellent. Two men can leave the trail of four! Now come with
me, monsieur."

He flitted from tree to tree on a line which was parallel to, but a few
yards distant from, that of their comrades. Then suddenly he crouched
behind a bush and pulled De Catinat down beside him.

"They must pass us in a few minutes," he whispered. "Do not fire if you
can help it." Something gleamed in Du Lhut's hand, and his comrade,
glancing down, saw that he had drawn a keen little tomahawk from his
belt. Again the mad wild thrill ran through the soldier's blood, as he
peered through the tangled branches and waited for whatever might come
out of the dim silent aisles of tree-boles.

And suddenly he saw something move. It flitted like a shadow from one
trunk to the other so swiftly that De Catinat could not have told
whether it were beast or human. And then again he saw it, and yet
again, sometimes one shadow, sometimes two shadows, silent, furtive,
like the _loup-garou_ with which his nurse had scared him in his
childhood. Then for a few moments all was still once more, and then in
an instant there crept out from among the bushes the most
terrible-looking creature that ever walked the earth, an Iroquois chief
upon the war-trail.

He was a tall powerful man, and his bristle of scalp-locks and eagle
feathers made him look a giant in the dim light, for a good eight feet
lay between his beaded moccasin and the topmost plume of his headgear.
One side of his face was painted in soot, ochre, and vermilion to
resemble a dog, and the other half as a fowl, so that the front view was
indescribably grotesque and strange. A belt of wampum was braced round
his loin-cloth, and a dozen scalp-locks fluttered out as he moved from
the fringe of his leggings. His head was sunk forward, his eyes gleamed
with a sinister light, and his nostrils dilated and contracted like
those of an excited animal. His gun was thrown forward, and he crept
along with bended knees, peering, listening, pausing, hurrying on, a
breathing image of caution. Two paces behind him walked a lad of
fou