w minutes he saw a red bead of light to
his right.

Henry knew that the light betokened a camp-fire, and he was sure that he
would find beside it the cause of the noise that he had heard. He
approached with care, the woods offering an ample covert. He soon saw
that the fire was of good size, and that there were at least a dozen
figures around it.

"More warriors," he said to himself, "probably bound for the same place
as the fleet."

But as he drew yet nearer he saw that not all the men around the
camp-fire were warriors. Three, despite their faces, browned by wind and
rain, belonged to the white race, and in the one nearest to him, Henry,
with a leap of the heart, recognized his old enemy, Braxton Wyatt.

Wyatt, like Timmendiquas, had come back to the scene of his earlier
exploits and this conjunction confirmed Henry in his belief that some
great movement was intended.

Wyatt was on the far side of the fire, where the flames lighted up his
face, and Henry was startled by the savagery manifested there. The
renegade's face, despite his youth, was worn and lined. His black hair
fell in dark locks upon his temples. He still wore the British uniform
that he had adopted in the East, but sun and rain had left little of its
original color. Wyatt had returned to the West unsuccessful, and Henry
knew that he was in his most evil mind.

The short, thick man sitting by Wyatt was Simon Girty, the most famous
of all the renegades, and just beyond him was Blackstaffe. The Indians
were Shawnees.

The three white men were deep in conversation and now and then they
pointed towards the north. Henry would have given much to have heard
what they said, but they did not speak loudly enough. He was tempted to
take a shot at the villain, Simon Girty. A single bullet would remove a
scourge from the border and save hundreds of lives. The bullet sent, he
might easily escape in the darkness. But he could not pull the trigger.
He could not fire upon anyone from ambush, and watching a little while
longer, he crept back through the forest to the boat, which he regained
without trouble.

Henry awakened his comrades and told them all that he had seen. They
agreed with him that it was of the utmost importance. Wyatt and Girty
were, no doubt, cooperating with Timmendiquas, and somewhere to the
north the great Wyandot intended to rally his forces for a supreme
effort.

"This leaves us without the shadow of a pretext for going on to
Wareville,