liates me to run from a brute, an' an inferior. Hark to their
barkin'."

They now heard the baying of the dogs distinctly, a long wailing cry
like the howling of hounds. The note of it was most ominous to Paul's
sensitive mind. In the mythology that he had read, dogs played a great
role, nearly always as the enemy of man. There were Cerberus and the
others, and flitting visions of them passed through his mind now. He was
aware, too, that the reality was not greatly inferior to his fancies.
The dogs could follow them anywhere, and the accidental picking-up of
their trail might destroy them all.

The five went on in silence, so far as they were concerned, for a long
time, but the baying behind them never ceased. It also grew louder, and
Henry, glancing hastily back, expected that the dogs would soon come
into sight.

"Judging from their barking, the Wyandots must love dogs of uncommon
size and fierceness," he said.

"'Pears likely to me," said Shif'less Sol. "We're good runners, all five
o' us. We've shaken the warriors off, but not the dogs."

"It's just as you say," said Henry. "We can't run on forever, so we must
shoot the trailers--that is--the dogs. Listen to them. They are not more
than a couple of hundred yards away now."

They crossed a little open space, leaped a brook and then entered the
woods again. But at a signal from Henry, they stopped a few yards
further on.

"Now, boys," he said, "be ready with your rifles. We must stop these
dogs. How many do you think they are, Tom?"

"'Bout four, I reckon."

"Then the moment they come into the open space, Tom, you and Paul and
Jim shoot at those on the left, and Sol and I will take the right."

The Indian dogs sprang into the open space and five rifles cracked
together. Three of them--they were four in number, as Tom had said--were
killed instantly, but the fourth sprang aside into the bushes, where he
remained. The five at once reloaded their rifles as they ran. Now they
increased their speed, hoping to shake off their pursuers. Behind them
rose a long, fierce howl, like a note of grief and revenge.

"That's the dog we did not kill," said Paul, "and he's going to hang
on."

"I've heard tell," said Tom Ross, "that 'cordin' to the Indian belief,
the souls o' dead warriors sometimes get into dogs an' other animals,
an' it ain't fur me to say that it ain't true. Mebbe it's really a dead
Injun, 'stead o' a live dog that's leadin' the warriors on."

Paul s