ou're
sleeping safe and sound with five hundred Iroquois warriors only a few
miles away."

"Then it'll suit me mighty well," said Shif'less Sol, grinning broadly.
"That's jest the place fur a lazy man like your humble servant, which is
me."

They reached the stepping stones, and Henry paused a moment.

"Do you feel steady enough, Sol, to jump from stone to stone?" he asked.

"I'm feelin' so good I could fly ef I had to," he replied. "Jest you
jump on, Henry, an' fur every jump you take you'll find me only one jump
behind you!"

Henry, without further ado, sprang from one stone to another, and behind
him, stone for stone, came the shiftless one. It was now past midnight,
and the moon was obscured. The keenest eyes twenty yards away could
not have seen the two dusky figures as they went by leaps into the very
heart of the great, black swamp. They reached the solid ground, and then
the hut.

"Here, Sol," said Henry, "is my house, and yours, also, and soon, I
hope, to be that of Paul, Tom, and Jim, too."

"Henry," said Shif'less Sol, "I'm shorely glad to come."

They went inside, stacked their captured rifles against the wall, and
soon were sound asleep.

Meanwhile sleep was laying hold of the Iroquois village, also. They had
eaten mightily and they had drunk mightily. Many times had they told the
glories of Hode-no-sau-nee, the Great League, and many times had they
gladly acknowledged the valor and worth of Timmendiquas and the brave
little Wyandot nation. Timmendiquas and Thayendanegea had sat side
by side throughout the feast, but often other great chiefs were with
them-Skanawati, Atotarho, and Hahiron, the Onondagas; Satekariwate, the
Mohawk; Kanokarih and Kanyadoriyo, the Senecas; and many others.

Toward midnight the women and the children left for the lodges, and soon
the warriors began to go also, or fell asleep on the ground, wrapped
in their blankets. The fires were allowed to sink low, and at last the
older chiefs withdrew, leaving only Timmendiquas and Thayendanegea.

"You have seen the power and spirit of the Iroquois," said
Thayendanegea. "We can bring many more warriors than are here into the
field, and we will strike the white settlements with you."

"The Wyandots are not so many as the warriors of the Great League," said
Timmendiquas proudly, "but no one has ever been before them in battle."

"You speak truth, as I have often heard it," said Thayendanegea
thoughtfully. Then he showed Timmend