k and cast searching glances around the tiny clearing in which he
had established his camp. Not a living thing did he observe.

But if there was an enemy on his trail, and he should come near the camp
and see it deserted he would suspect a trap at once. Either he would
circle about so as to finally find Enoch, or he would fly from the
ambush at once. "I expect I am very foolish,--losing good sleep that I
need, too!" muttered the young fellow. "But still----"

He could not explain the strange unrest that possessed him. He was not
of a particularly nervous temperament; therefore his present mood
troubled him the more. There was danger menacing him; he felt it, if he
could not see nor understand it. The only possibility of peril which
reason suggested was through the agency of that stranger. "I must have
things here so that he will not suspect that I am on my guard," the
youth muttered.

Forthwith he dragged a piece of a broken tree-trunk to the fire, wrapped
his coat about it and placed his cap at the end of the stick farthest
from the blaze. He was careful to place the rude dummy far enough away
from the fire so that its flickering light should not be cast upon it
too strongly. It really looked, when he was through, as though some
person lay there asleep. He did not feed the flames too generously, but
left burning some hardwood sticks, the glowing coals of which would lend
but little light to the scene. Then he retired again to the shadow of
the tree where, crouching between two huge exposed roots, he waited with
sleepless eyes for that which was, perhaps, merely the phantom of his
fears.

CHAPTER XIX

THE RISING OF THE CLANS

As still as the shadow of the tree itself, Enoch lay with his face
toward the camp. Truly, had the forest not been so dark outside the
radiance of the fire, he would have set out again upon his journey, and
left this spot which seemed to his troubled mind the lurking place of
some serious danger. The minutes grew to an hour, however, without a
suspicious sound reaching his ears. The usual noises of the forest--the
hooting of the owl, the wolf's cry, the whimper of the wild-cat--were
all that disturbed the repose of the wilderness.

But suddenly a dry twig snapped somewhere near him. The sound went
through the anxious youth like a shock of electricity. Its direction he
could not fathom; yet he was sure that the branch had crackled under the
pressure of a foot. Somebody--or something-