er
in them. They grew weaker and weaker. The food that they had brought
from the Wyoming fort was almost exhausted, and the wild whortleberries
were far from sustaining. Fortunately there was plenty of water
flowing tinder the dark woods and along the mountainside. But they were
compelled to stop at intervals of an hour or two to rest, and the more
timid continually expected Indian ambush.

The five met shortly after noon and took another reckoning of the
situation. They still realized to the full the dangers of Indian
pursuit, which in this case might be a mere matter of accident. Anybody
could follow the broad trail left by the fugitives, but the Iroquois,
busy with destruction in the valley, might not follow, even if they
saw it. No one could tell. The danger of starvation or of death from
exhaustion was more imminent, more pressing, and the five resolved to
let scouting alone for the rest of the day and seek game.

"There's bound to be a lot of it in these woods," said Shif'less Sol,
"though it's frightened out of the path by our big crowd, but we ought
to find it."

Henry and Shif'less Sol went in one direction, and Paul, Tom, and Long
Jim in another. But with all their hunting they succeeded in finding
only one little deer, which fell to the rifle of Silent Tom. It made
small enough portions for the supper and breakfast of nearly a hundred
people, but it helped wonderfully, and so did the fires which Henry and
his comrades would now have built, even had they not been needed for the
cooking. They saw that light and warmth, the light and warmth of glowing
coals, would alone rouse life in this desolate band.

They slept the second night on the ground among the trees, and the next
morning they entered that gloomy region of terrible memory, the Great
Dismal Swamp of the North, known sometimes, to this day, as "The Shades
of Death."

CHAPTER XII. THE SHADES OF DEATH

"The Shades of Death" is a marsh on a mountain top, the great, wet, and
soggy plain of the Pocono and Broad mountains. When the fugitives from
Wyoming entered it, it was covered with a dense growth of pines, growing
mostly out of dark, murky water, which in its turn was thick with a
growth of moss and aquatic plants. Snakes and all kinds of creeping
things swarmed in the ooze. Bear and panther were numerous.

Carpenter did not know any way around this terrible region, and they
were compelled to enter it. Henry was again devoutly thankful tha