ered Shif'less Sol, as he
reloaded. "Keep it up, an' mebbe we kin git a chance at Braxton Wyatt
hisself. Since Wyoming I'd never think o' missin' sech a chance."

"Nor I, either," said Henry, and he resumed in his powerful tones: "The
place of a leader is in front, isn't it? Then why don't you come up?"

Braxton Wyatt and Walter Butler did not come up. They were not lacking
in courage, but Wyatt knew what deadly marksmen the fugitive boat
contained, and he had also told Butler. So they still hung back,
although they raged at Henry Ware's taunts, and permitted the Mohawks
and Senecas to take the lead in the chase.

"They're not going to give us a chance," said Henry. "I'm satisfied
of that. They'll let redskins receive our bullets, though just now
I'd rather it were the two white ones. What do you think, Sol, of that
leading boat? Shouldn't we give another hint?"

"I agree with you, Henry," said the shiftless one. "They're comin'
much too close fur people that ain't properly interduced to us. This
promiskus way o' meetin' up with strangers an' lettin' 'em talk to you
jest ez ef they'd knowed you all their lives hez got to be stopped. It's
your time, Henry, to give 'em a polite hint, an' I jest suggest that you
take the big fellow in the front o' the boat who looks like a Mohawk."

Henry raised his rifle, fired, and the Mohawk would row no more. Again
confusion prevailed in the pursuing fleet, and there was a decline of
enthusiasm. Braxton Wyatt and Walter Butler raged and swore, but, as
they showed no great zeal for the lead themselves, the Iroquois did not
gain on the fugitive boat. They, too, were fast learning that the two
who crouched there with their rifles ready were among the deadliest
marksmen in existence. They fired a dozen shots, perhaps, but their
rifles did not have the long range of the Kentucky weapons, and again
the bullets fell short, causing little jets of water to spring up.

"They won't come any nearer, at least not for the present," said Henry,
"but will hang back just out of rifle range, waiting for some chance to
help them."

Shif'less Sol looked the other way, down the Susquehanna, and announced
that he could see no danger. There was probably no Indian fleet farther
down the river than the one now pursuing them, and the danger was behind
them, not before.

Throughout the firing, Silent Tom Ross and Long Jim Hart had not said a
word, but they rowed with a steadiness and power that would hav