“What do you mean by ’on the flank’?” asked Paul.

“They’ve learned in some manner, maybe by way of Canada, that a big wagon train is coming up through the Wilderness Road in the spring, to join our settlements.  If it gets there it will double our strength, but the Indians mean to make a great curve to the south and east and strike it just as it leaves the mountains.”

“They’re smart in that,” said Shif’less Sol.  “They’d be sure to hit them wagons when they ain’t expected.”

“Yes,” said Henry Ware, “if the train is not warned.”

Paul looked at him and saw that his eyes were full of meaning.

“Then we are to warn that train,” said Paul.

“Yes, when the time comes.”

“It’s the greatest work that we can do,” said Paul, with emphasis, and the others nodded their agreement.  It was all that was needed to bind the five together in the mighty task that they had begun.

Nothing more was said upon the subject for days, but Paul’s mind was full of it.  His comrades and he had impeded the making of the great war trail, and now they were to see that reenforcements safely reached their own.  It was a continuing task, and it appealed powerfully to the statesman so strong in Paul.

A very cold winter moved slowly along, and they remained on the island, though Henry and Ross ranged far and wide.  On one of these expeditions the two scouts met a wandering trapper, by whom they sent word again to their people in the south that they were safe.

Henry and Ross also learned that Yellow Panther would lead the Miamis, Red Eagle the Shawnees, and there would be detachments of Wyandots and others.  They would fall like a thunderbolt upon the wagon train, and destroy it utterly.

“And Braxton Wyatt will be with them?” said Paul indignantly.

“Of course,” replied Henry.

“Henry, we’ve got to save that wagon train, if every one of us dies trying!” exclaimed Paul, with the greatest possible emphasis.

“Of course,” said Henry again, quietly, but with the stern determination that meant with him do or die.

“It’s a part o’ our job,” drawled Shif’less Sol, “but it must be nigh a thousand miles to the place whar the Wilderness Road comes out o’ the mountains.  I see a terrible long journey ahead fur a tired man.”

Henry smiled.  They all knew that none would be more zealous on the march, none more lion-hearted in battle, than this same Solomon Hyde, nicknamed the shiftless one.

“When do we start?” asked Jim Hart.

“Not before the cold weather passes,” replied Henry.  “It wouldn’t be worth while.  The emigrant train won’t come through the mountains until spring, and we can do better work here, watching the savages.”