ue? Why else should I avow that I have spoken false words?"

Yellow Panther looked at the unhappy figure and face, and believed.

"It is enough," he said. "We will go back to our own village. Come!"

He spoke to his warriors, and they returned swiftly on their own tracks to
the Miami village. Braxton Wyatt went with them, and he dared not look
back once at that fateful clump of bushes.

When they were gone far beyond sight, Henry Ware, Tom Ross, and Shif'less
Sol rose up, looked at each other, and laughed.

"That wuz well done, Henry," said Shif'less Sol lazily. "I never knowed a
purtier trick to be told. He's clean caught in his own net. If he wuz to
tell the truth now to the chief, Yellow Panther wouldn't believe him."

"And if he were to believe him, Yellow Panther, in his anger, would
tomahawk him," said Henry Ware, "No, Braxton Wyatt will not dare to
tell."

"And now we may take it easy," said Tom Ross. "But I wouldn't like to be
in your place, Henry, ef ever you wuz to fall into the hands uv Yellow
Panther an' that renegade."

"I'll take care that I don't have any such bad luck," said Henry. "And now
we must find Paul and Jim."

Serenely satisfied, they resumed their journey, but now they went at a
slower gait.

CHAPTER XIV

IN WINTER QUARTERS

The three walked slowly on for a long time, curving about gradually to the
region in which Paul and Jim Hart remained hidden. They did not say much,
but Shif'less Sol was slowly swelling with an admiration which was bound
to find a vent some time or other.

"Henry," he burst out at last, "this whole scheme o' yours has been worked
in the most beautiful way, an' that last trick with Braxton Wyatt wuz the
finest I ever saw."

"There were three of us," said Henry briefly and modestly.

"It's a great thing to use your brain," said the shiftless one sagely.
"I'm thinkin' o' doin' it hereafter myself."

Tom Ross laughed deeply and said:

"I'd make a beginning before it wuz too late, ef I wuz you, Sol."

"How long do you think it will take the Shawnees an' the Miamis to
straighten out that tangle about the great war trail?" asked the
shiftless one of Henry.

"Not before snow flies," replied the youth; "and then there will be so
much mutual anger and disgust that they will not be able to get together
for months. But we must stop up here, Sol, and watch, and egg on the
misunderstanding. Don't you think so, Tom?"

"Of course!" replied Ross briefly, bu