much older in expression than it had been the year before. And in
his hair was a bunch of eagle feathers which showed that, to his own
people even, he was now a brave and no longer a boy.

"Umph!" he grunted, drawing the blanket draped from his shoulders more
closely around him. "Harding--me talk to you!" He looked boldly at
Enoch, and the latter waving the others back, followed the Indian out of
the hovel. Without speaking or looking behind him Crow Wing led the
white boy to the riverside, and some distance from the hovel. There he
halted and pointed suddenly across the stream in the direction of that
place in the forest where Enoch had once seen the mysterious white man
sitting beside the campfire.

"'Member?" asked Crow Wing, flashing a keen glance at the white boy.

"The man in the woods!" exclaimed Enoch. "You wish to tell me something
about him?"

"Umph! He come again. Look out. Crow Wing tell you, because white boy
strong--know how to fight. Watch 'em sharp!" and with this brief
declaration the Indian youth strode away and the astonished Enoch
watched him disappear in the tall brush along the creek bank. He went
back to the merry party at the hovel with a heavy heart and not until
after the last of the visitors had gone home--the boys swinging pine
torches and giving the warwhoop to scare off any lurking wolves or
catamounts--did Enoch find opportunity to tell his mother of Crow Wing's
warning.

"Simon Halpen is surely coming to evict us," he declared. "I am sure it
was he I saw in the forest last year. And now, taking advantage of our
being lulled by hopes of peace, he will try to strike an unexpected blow
as Colonel Reid did."

"The neighbors will help us," the widow said.

"But suppose he comes with a big force? And we cannot expect the
neighbors to neglect their own homes," said Enoch. "I will try and see
Captain Baker, if you think it best, mother."

"Captain Baker will help us. He knows how hard it would be if the
Yorkers stripped us of our all. He is a kind-hearted man, though often
rude and fretful."

"Well, marm, he has cause to be fretful," said Enoch. "Perhaps we can
get a few of the boys to stay with us nights for awhile."

And this they did, for Captain Baker sent three or four sturdy Green
Mountain Boys around to the widow's farm every night for a week. But the
Yorker and his crew did not appear. At this time, when he might have
been of such assistance to them, 'Siah Bolderwood was away