logs, and now and then they saw brown,
muscular legs passing by. Two warriors stopped within ten feet of them and
exchanged comment. Henry, who understood their language, knew that they
were puzzled and angry. But Paul, without knowing a word that they said,
understood, too. His imagination supplied the place of knowledge. They
were full of wrath because they had lost the trail of the two whom they
had regarded as certainly theirs, and to seek them in the vast maze of
logs and brush was like looking for one dead leaf among the millions.

The two warriors stood still for a full minute, and then moved on out of
sight. Paul drew a deep breath of relief, like a sigh, and Henry's hand
was pressed once more upon his shoulder.

"Not a sound yet, not a sound, Paul!" he whispered ever so softly. "They
will hunt here a long time."

More warriors, treading on the logs, showed that his caution was not
misplaced. They poked now and then in the water, amid the great mass of
debris, and one stood on a log so near to the two lads that they could
have reached out and touched his moccasined feet. But their covert was too
close to be suspected, and soon the man passed on.

Presently all of them were out of sight; but Henry, a true son of caution
and the wilderness, would not yet let Paul stir.

"They will come back this way," he said. "We risk nothing by waiting, and
we may save much."

Paul made no protest, but he was growing cold. The chill from the water of
the river was creeping into his veins, and he longed for the dry land and
a chance to stir about. Yet he clenched his teeth and resolved to endure.
He would not move until Henry gave the word.

He saw what a wise precaution it was, when, a half hour later, seven or
eight warriors came walking back on the logs, and thrust with sticks into
the little patches of open water between them. Henry and Paul crouched
closer in their covert, and the warriors stalked back and forth, still
searching.

Henry knew that the Shawnees, failing to find a place beyond the debris
where the fugitives had emerged upon the bank, would believe that they
might be hidden under the logs, and would not give up the hunt there. If
they should happen to find the rifles and ammunition, they would certainly
be confirmed in the conclusion, but so far they had not found them. Henry,
looking between the logs, saw them pass near the place of concealment, but
they did not stop, and were soon near the other bank.