nto Canada, I wouldn't dream of such a thing. It would
interfere with my plans. I'm going back into the South to fight against
your people and the Indians."

"But you're a prisoner!"

"For the present, yes, but I shall not remain so."

"You can't escape."

"I always escape. It's true I was never before in so strong a prison,
but I shall go. I am willing to tell you, Lieutenant Holderness, because
others will tell you anyhow, that I have outside four very faithful and
skillful friends. Nothing would induce them to desert me, and among us
we will secure my escape."

Into the look of mingled admiration and pity with which Holderness had
regarded Henry crept a touch of defiance.

"You're deucedly confident, old chap," he said. "You don't seem to think
that we amount to much here, and yet Colonel de Peyster has undoubtedly
saved you from the Indians. You should be grateful to him for that
much."

Henry laughed. This ingenuous youth now amused him.

"What makes you think it was Colonel de Peyster or any other English or
Tory officer who saved me from the Indians? Well, it wasn't. If Colonel
Bird and your other white friends had had their way when I was taken I
should have been burned at the stake long before this. It was the
Wyandot chief, Timmendiquas, known in our language as White Lightning,
who saved me."

The young officer's red face flushed deeper red.

"I knew that we had been charged with such cruelties," he said, "but I
had hoped that they were not true. Now, I must leave you here, and, upon
my soul, I do not wish you any harm."

He went out and Henry felt a heavy key turn in the lock. A minute or two
after he had gone the prisoner tried the door, and found that it was
made of heavy oak, with strong crosspieces of the same material. He
exerted all his great strength, and, as he expected, he could not shake
it. Then he went back to the pine stool, which he drew up near a barred
window, and sitting there watched as well as he could what was passing
in the great court.

Henry had too much natural wisdom and experience to beat his head
uselessly against bars. He would remain quiet, preserving the strength
of both body and mind, until the time for action came. Meanwhile he was
using his eyes. He saw some of the chiefs pass, always accompanied by
white officers. But he saw officers alone, and now and then women, both
red and white. He also saw the swarthy faces of woods runners, and among
them, one whose fa