ch manner that the chill winds were turned
aside. Beneath were the dry leaves of last year which they had raked up
into couches, and thus, every man with a blanket beneath and another
above him, they did not care how the wind blew. They were as snug as
bears in their lairs, but despite the darkness of the night and the
exceeding improbability of anyone finding them both Henry and Tom Ross
lay awake and watched. The others slept peacefully, and the two
sentinels could hear their easy breathing only a few feet away.

In the night Henry began to grow uneasy. Once or twice he thought he
heard cries like the hoot of the owl or the howl of the wolf, but they
were so far away that he was uncertain. Both hoot and howl might be a
product of the imagination. He was so alive to the wilderness, it was so
full of meaning to him that his mind could create sounds when none
existed. He whispered to Tom, but Ross, listening as hard as he could,
heard nothing but the rustling of the leaves and twigs before the wind.

Henry was sure now that what he had heard was the product of a too vivid
fancy, but a little later he was not so sure. It must be the faint cry
of a wolf that he now heard or its echo. He had the keenest ear of them
all, and that Tom Ross did not hear the sound, was no proof. A vivid
imagination often means a prompt and powerful man of action, and Henry
acted at once.

"Tom," he whispered, "I'm going to scout in the distance from which I
thought the sounds came. Don't wake the boys; I'll be back before
morning."

Tom Ross nodded. He did not believe that Henry had really heard
anything, and he would have remonstrated with him, but he knew that it
was useless. He merely drew his blanket a little closer, and resolved
that one pair of eyes should watch as well as two had watched before.

Henry folded his blankets, put them in his little pack, and in a minute
was gone. It was dark, but not so dark that one used to the night could
not see. The sounds that he had seemed to hear came from the southwest,
and the road in the direction was easy, grown up with forest but
comparatively free from undergrowth. He walked swiftly about a mile,
then he heard the cry of the wolf again. Now, the last doubt was gone
from his mind. It was a real sound, and it was made by Indian calling to
Indian.

He corrected his course a little, and went swiftly on. He heard the cry
once more, now much nearer, and, in another mile, he saw a glow among
th