Only the night breeze, wandering caressingly over the grass, might have told of two dark forms gliding, gliding, gliding so softly, so surely, so surely toward the forest.  Only the moon and the pale stars had eyes to see these creeping figures.

Like avengers they moved, on a mission to slay and to save!

On over the dark line where plain merged into forest they crawled.  No whispering, no hesitating; but a silent, slow, certain progress showed their purpose.  In single file they slipped over the moss, the leader clearing the path.  Inch by inch they advanced.  Tedious was this slow movement, difficult and painful this journey which must end in lightninglike speed.  They rustled no leaf, nor snapped a twig, nor shook a fern, but passed onward slowly, like the approach of Death.  The seconds passed as minutes; minutes as hours; an entire hour was spent in advancing twenty feet!

At last the top of the knoll was reached.  The Avenger placed his hand on his follower’s shoulder.  The strong pressure was meant to remind, to warn, to reassure.  Then, like a huge snake, the first glided away.

He who was left behind raised his head to look into the open place called the glade of the Beautiful Spring.  An oval space lay before him, exceedingly lovely in the moonlight; a spring, as if a pearl, gemmed the center.  An Indian guard stood statuelike against a stone.  Other savages lay in a row, their polished heads shining.  One slumbering form was bedecked with feathers and frills.  Near him lay an Indian blanket, from the border of which peered two faces, gleaming white and sad in the pitying moonlight.

The watcher quivered at the sight of those pale faces; but he must wait while long moments passed.  He must wait for the Avenger to creep up, silently kill the guard, and release the prisoners without awakening the savages.  If that plan failed, he was to rush into the glade, and in the excitement make off with one of the captives.

He lay there waiting, listening, wrought up to the intensest pitch of fierce passion.  Every nerve was alert, every tendon strung, and every muscle strained ready for the leap.

Only the faint rustling of leaves, the low swish of swaying branches, the soft murmur of falling water, and over all the sigh of the night wind, proved to him that this picture was not an evil dream.  His gaze sought the quiet figures, lingered hopefully on the captives, menacingly on the sleeping savages, and glowered over the gaudily arrayed form.  His glance sought the upright guard, as he stood a dark blot against the gray stone.  He saw the Indian’s plume, a single feather waving silver-white.  Then it became riveted on the bubbling, refulgent spring.  The pool was round, perhaps five feet across, and shone like a burnished shield.  It mirrored the moon, the twinkling stars, the spectre trees.