replied
Shif'less Sol, after a little wait, "nothin' from the women goin', an'
nothin' from the Iroquois comin'."

"We'll just lie close," said Henry. "This hard spot of ground isn't more
than thirty or forty feet each way, and nobody can get on it without our
knowing it."

The others did not reply. All lay motionless upon their sides, with
their shoulders raised a little, in order that they might take instant
aim when the time came. Some rays of the sun penetrated the canopy of
pines, and fell across the brown, determined faces and the lean brown
hands that grasped the long, slender-barreled Kentucky rifles. Another
snake slipped from the ground into the black water and swam away. Some
water animal made a light splash as he, too, swam from the presence of
these strange intruders. Then they beard a sighing sound, as of a
foot drawn from mud, and they knew that the Iroquois were approaching,
savages in war, whatever they might be otherwise, and expecting an easy
prey. Five brown thumbs cocked their rifles, and five brown forefingers
rested upon the triggers. The eyes of woodsmen who seldom missed looked
down the sights.

The sound of feet in the mud came many times. The enemy was evidently
drawing near.

"How many do you think are out thar?" whispered Shif'less Sol to Henry.

"Twenty, at least, it seems to me by the sounds." "I s'pose the best
thing for us to do is to shoot at the first head we see."

"Yes, but we mustn't all fire at the same man."

It was suggested that Henry call off the turns of the marksmen, and he
agreed to do so. Shif'less Sol was to fire first. The sounds now ceased.
The Iroquois evidently had some feeling or instinct that they were
approaching an enemy who was to be feared, not weak and unarmed women
and children.

The five were absolutely motionless, finger on trigger. The American
wilderness had heroes without number. It was Horatius Cocles five times
over, ready to defend the bridge with life. Over the marsh rose the
weird cry of an owl, and some water birds called in lonely fashion.

Henry judged that the fugitives were now three quarters of a mile away,
out of the sound of rifle shot. He had urged Carpenter to marshal them
on as far as he could. But the silence endured yet a while longer. In
the dull gray light of the somber day and the waning afternoon the marsh
was increasingly dreary and mournful. It seemed that it must always be
the abode of dead or dying things.

The wet g