e water from the spring in his cap.
The man drank and seemed a little stronger.

"You're better to me perhaps than I'd have been to you if it had been
the other way round," he said, "an' I might as well tell you that the
man with the harelip was Colonel Bird, a British officer, who is most
active against your settlements, and who has become a great leader among
the Indians. He's arranging now with the people at Detroit to strike you
somewhere."

"Then I'm sorry my bullet didn't find him instead of you," said Tom
Ross.

"So am I," said the man with a faint attempt at humor.

Paul, who had been trying to remember, suddenly spoke up.

"I heard of that man when we were in the East," he said. "He fell in
love with a girl at Oswego or some other of the British posts, and she
rejected him because he was so ugly and had a hare lip. Then he seemed
to have a sort of madness and ever since he's been leading expeditions
of the Indians against our settlements."

"It's true," said Perley, "he's the man that you're talking about and
he's mad about shedding blood. He's drumming up the Indian forces
everywhere. His--"

Perley stopped suddenly and coughed. His face became ghastly pale, and
then his head fell over sideways on his shoulders.

"He's dead," said Shif'less Sol, "an' I'm sorry, too, Tom, that your
bullet didn't hit Colonel Bird 'stead o' him."

"Do you think," asked Paul, "that they are likely to come back and
attack us?"

"No," replied Henry, "they've had enough. Besides they can't attack us
in broad daylight. Look how open the forest is. We'd be sure to see them
long before they could get within rifle shot."

"Then," said Paul, "let's bury Perley before we go on. I don't like to
think of a white man lying here in the forest to be devoured by wild
beasts, even if he did try to kill us."

Shif'less Sol heartily seconded Paul's suggestion, and soon it was done.
They had no spades with which to dig a grave for Perley's body, but they
built over him a little cairn of fallen timber, sufficient to protect
him from the wolves and bears, and then prepared to march anew.

But they took a last look at the large open space in which the abandoned
Indian village had stood. Nothing was left there but ashes and dying
coals. Not a fragment of the place was standing. But they felt that it
was better for it to be so. If man had left, then the forest should
resume its complete sway. The grass and the bushes would now cover it up