heavy with the odor of burned gunpowder, drifted about the
room.

Henry threw open the two shuttered windows, and fresh currents of air
poured into the room. Over the mountains in the east came the first
shaft of day. The surface of the river was lightening.

"What shall we do with them?" asked Paul, pointing to the silent forms
on the floor.

"Leave them," said Henry. "Butler's army is burning everything before
it, and this house and all in it is bound to go. You notice, however,
that Braxton Wyatt is not here."

"Trust him to escape every time," said Shif'less Sol. "Of course he
stood back while the Indians rushed the house. But ez shore ez we live
somebody will get him some day. People like that can't escape always."

They slipped from the house, turning toward the river bank, and not long
after it was full daylight they were at Forty Fort again, where they
found Standish and his family. Henry replied briefly to the man's
questions, but two hours later a scout came in and reported the grim
sight that he had seen in the Standish home. No one could ask for
further proof of the fealty of the five, who sought a little sleep, but
before noon were off again.

They met more fugitives, and it was now too dangerous to go farther up
the valley. But not willing to turn back, they ascended the mountains
that hem it in, and from the loftiest point that they could find sought
a sight of the enemy.

It was an absolutely brilliant day in summer. The blue of the heavens
showed no break but the shifting bits of white cloud, and the hills and
mountains rolled away, solid masses of rich, dark green. The river, a
beautiful river at any time, seemed from this height a great current of
quicksilver. Henry pointed to a place far up the stream where black dots
appeared on its surface. These dots were moving, and they came on in
four lines.

"Boys," he said, "you know what those lines of black dots are?"

"Yes," replied Shif'less Sol, "it's Butler's army of Indians, Tories,
Canadians, an' English. They've come from Tioga Point on the river, an'
our Colonel Butler kin expect 'em soon."

The sunlight became dazzling, and showed the boats, despite the
distance, with startling clearness. The five, watching from their peak,
saw them turn in toward the land, where they poured forth a motley
stream of red men and white, a stream that was quickly swallowed up in
the forest.

"They are coming down through the woods on the fort, said Tom R