Sergeant Corney came up to us, that I loosened my
grasp entirely in order to pass my hands over the stranger's face and
head.

There were no feathers, no daubs of paint, which should have been
apparent to the touch, and I whispered, with my mouth close to the
fellow's ear, while yet pinioning his arms in such a fashion that he could
not well move:

"Who are you?"

"A white man," came the reply, the words sounding thick and muffled
because of the squeezing which the speaker's throat had received.

Then like a flash came to me that which I should have suspected before!

It was my comrade for whom we had been searching that I was grappling
with, and, just as the old soldier knelt by my side knife in hand to put
an end to the struggle, I whispered, for the darkness was so intense that
I could not even see the face which was but a few inches from my own:

"Are you Jacob Sitz?"

"Ay; an' you?"

"It is the sergeant an' Noel, lad, an' right glad am I that we came to
know each other just as we did, else would your blood have been on our
hands."

Jacob apparently gave no heed to the close shave which had been his, so
great was the delight at knowing we were with him once more, and we three
sat with our heads close together in order that we might question and be
questioned without fear of betraying our whereabouts.

"Where have you been all this time?" I asked, and Jacob replied, softly:

"Hangin' around this camp. Twice have I come near bein' discovered, an'
of a verity I believed, when you clutched my throat, that this was the
last--the endin' of it all."

"Have you seen your father?" Sergeant Corney asked, and the lad replied,
triumphantly:

"Ay, an' had speech with him."

"Where is he?"

"In a lodge near Thayendanega's, an' until to-night there has been no
great danger he would be tortured, as I believe because of the sachem's
promise that he shall not be killed."

"How did you get to speak with him?" I asked, in surprise.

"Within three hours after leavin' you I was hereabout, an' saw him. That
night I crept through the village undiscovered, for even the dogs failed
to bark at me, I know not why, an' there talked with my father as I now
talk with you."

"If you got away, why could not he have done the same?" I asked, surprised
that Jacob should have succeeded in making his way among the lodges.

"I urged him to make the attempt, but he claimed that there was no hope we
two could leave the village und