r every sound that rose above the steady drip of the
rain, five pairs of eyes, uncommonly keen in their keenness, watched the
bushes whence the first faint signals of approach had come. Now they
heard more distinctly that brushing of clothing against the bushes, and
then a muttered oath or two. Evidently the strangers were white men,
perhaps daring hunters who were not afraid to enter the very heart of
the Indian country. Nevertheless the hands still remained on their
rifles and the muzzles still bore on the point whence the sounds came.

Three white men, dripping with rain, emerged from the forest. They were
clad in garb, half civilized and half that of the hunter. All were well
armed and deeply tanned by exposure, but the attention of the five was
instantly concentrated upon the first of the strangers, a young man of
medium height, but of the most extraordinary ugliness. His skin, even
without the tan, would have been very dark. His eyes, narrow and
oblique, were almost Oriental in cast and his face was disfigured by a
hideous harelip. The whole effect was sinister to the last degree, but
Henry and his comrades were fair enough to credit it to a deformity of
nature and not to a wicked soul behind. The two with him were a little
older. They were short, thickly built, and without anything unusual in
their appearance.

The three strangers were dripping with water and when they came into the
abandoned village they stood for a few moments talking together. Then
their eyes began to roam around in search of shelter.

"They'll be coming this way soon," whispered Henry to Paul, "because
it's about the only place large enough to keep three men dry."

"Of course they'll come here," Paul whispered back; "now I wonder who
and what they are."

Henry did not reply and the five remained as motionless as ever, five
dusky figures in a row, sitting on the bark floor, and leaning against
the bark wall. But every sense in them was acutely alive, and they
watched the strangers look into one ruined lodge after another. None
offered sufficient shelter and gradually they came toward the Council
House. Always the man with the harelip and ugly face led. Henry watched
him closely. The twilight and the rain did not allow any very clear view
of him, just enough to disclose that his face was hideous and sinister.
But Henry had a singularly clear mind and he tried to trace the
malignant impression to the fact of physical ugliness, unwilling to d